7 Offbeat Atlantic Coast Towns To Visit

The Atlantic Coast has a soft spot for the offbeat. Blackbeard died in the inlet at Ocracoke, an island still reachable only by ferry. Since 1927, Moody's Diner has served pie off Route 1 in Waldoboro. On Folly Beach, a corner store sells kombucha at three in the morning. Avalon left the arcades off its boardwalk, a plain half-mile walk along the ocean. Wild ponies, a Navy submarine base, and a downtown built on sailfish round out the coast.

Stuart, Florida

Stuart claims the "Sailfish Capital of the World" nickname. Anglers chase billfish off its coast all winter. Downtown pairs the 1920s Lyric Theatre, still booking live shows, with the Elliott Museum and its rotating collection of antique cars. Gilbert's Bar House of Refuge, the oldest building in Martin County, recalls the crews who once watched this coast for shipwrecks.

Confusion Corner jams eight streets and a live rail line into one roundabout that has baffled drivers for decades. A downtown shop sells a T-shirt to anyone who survives it. CBS sent Charles Kuralt to film the mess in 1979. Just east on Hutchinson Island, the Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center has nature trails and a sea-turtle program at the ocean's edge.

Chincoteague, Virginia

Chincoteague plans its whole summer around a herd of wild ponies. Every late July, the fire company's Saltwater Cowboys drive the herd across the Assateague Channel. A foal auction the next day trims the count to about 150. The ponies live on the Virginia end of Assateague, inside a national wildlife refuge. The town occupies its own island between the Atlantic and Chincoteague Bay.

A few miles inland, NASA's Wallops Flight Facility has launched rockets since 1945. Its visitor center posts launch dates and displays a moon rock from Apollo 17. The Museum of Chincoteague Island traces the island's old trade in crabs and oysters.

Ocracoke, North Carolina

No bridge reaches Ocracoke. The only way onto this North Carolina barrier island is the ferry, a 40-minute crossing from Hatteras. Pirates liked the isolation first. Blackbeard made these waters his base. The British navy killed him in Ocracoke Inlet in 1718. The treasure legends outlasted him by three centuries.

The island measures four square miles. Most of it moves at bicycle speed. The Ocracoke Lighthouse, built in 1823, is the oldest still working in North Carolina, its beam reaching 14 miles offshore. Banker ponies, descendants of the island's old free-roaming herds, graze a pen along NC 12. A short trail at Springer's Point winds through wind-bent live oaks to the sound. With a permit, a driver can take a vehicle onto the sand and find an empty stretch.

Waldoboro, Maine

Waldoboro built its name on pie. Moody's Diner has fed Route 1 since 1927, back when the Moodys rented dollar-a-night cabins. The lunch wagon they added grew into the white clapboard diner there now. A few minutes away, Fawcett's Antique Toy and Art Museum packs its rooms with vintage toys.

German immigrants built the Old German Meeting House in 1772 on the east bank of the Medomak River. In the winter of 1794, the congregation dismantled it and hauled the pieces across the frozen river to the west bank. It still stands there. The Medomak reaches Muscongus Bay and the Gulf of Maine a few miles downstream. Kayakers and anglers work the tidal water without the open-coast crowds.

Folly Beach, South Carolina

Folly Beach earned the nickname "the Edge of America." Mermaid statues turn up in front yards. Art cars park on the side streets. The Washout, on the east end, is Folly's main surf break, where beginners and pros share the lineup.

Bert's Market never closes, with kombucha stocked next to the beer. Chico Feo serves tacos in an open backyard. Past the last houses, the beach gives way to dunes and shorebirds, with dolphins working the wash offshore. The Morris Island Lighthouse stands in the water now, stranded by a century of shifting sand.

St. Marys, Georgia

St. Marys shares its waterfront with a Navy submarine base. The St. Marys Submarine Museum aims a working periscope at the river and stocks decades of naval gear. Orange Hall, a white-columned Greek Revival house, stands in the old downtown.

A ferry from the town dock is the only public way to Cumberland Island, the largest and least developed of Georgia's barrier islands. The island remains nearly empty. Feral horses graze the dunes around the Dungeness ruins, a Carnegie mansion that burned in 1959.

Avalon, New Jersey

Avalon's motto, "Cooler by a Mile," is literal. The island juts a mile farther into the Atlantic than its neighbors. That extra ocean cools the air. Avalon also has the highest dunes on the southern Jersey shore, plus a maritime forest most towns leveled a century ago. The Avalon Dune and Beach Trail crosses the dunes to an empty beach.

No arcades crowd Avalon's New Jersey boardwalk, just a half-mile wooden walk along the ocean. The Princeton, on Dune Drive, hides a band stage behind its restaurant. On the bay side, paddlers slip through the inlets with little boat traffic.

Where The Coast Goes Off Script

A working periscope, a pony auction, and a roundabout no one can navigate share one coastline. In St. Marys, the only public path to the wild horses of Cumberland Island is the town ferry. Ocracoke has marked two centuries under a fixed white light reachable only by boat. In Waldoboro, a German meeting house once crossed the frozen Medomak on sleds. Avalon stands a mile farther out to sea than the islands beside it. None of these towns reads like the resort strip a few exits away.