Village of Buxton, North Carolina
Buxton is famous along the Outer Banks for a myriad of reasons. It’s exceptional fishing beach “Cape Point” attracts anglers from all over North Carolina, and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the country’s most recognized lighthouse, calls this stretch of shoreline home.
With a mixture of full-time residents and vacation rental homes, Buxton is a peaceful coastal village with shops, tackle stores, and restaurants, and ideal for visitors who love surf fishing and seashells, self-guided tours through Outer Banks’ unspoiled maritime forests, and being close to the statuesque Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.
Buxton Attractions:
- Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
- Cape Point
- Buxton Woods
- Buxton Lifeguarded Beach
With approximately 1500 year-round residents, Buxton has one of the largest populations on Hatteras Island, and the town’s character is a mixture of a resort destination coupled with small town charm. One of the biggest attractions to visitors is the beach bordering the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. A large parking area allows visitors to access the island’s only lifeguarded beach by the lighthouse, or folks with 4WD vehicles can head down to the ORV access ramp and drive out to Cape Point. As the veritable center of North Carolina’s barrier islands, and the section where miles of beaches branch off into two different angles, Cape Point is known as one of the best fishing beaches in the world.
Because of its geographic locale, Cape Point is also remarkably close to the Gulf Stream where thousands of game fish migrating past this stretch of beach every day. When the fishing is good, (which it almost always is), Cape Point anglers can expect to land pompano, Spanish mackerel, king mackerel, bluefish, red drum, flounder, mahi mahi, and cobias. Adjacent to Cape Point is the equally famous South Beach which is known for both its excellent fishing, and its seashells. After storms, mountains of seashells in excellent condition wash up on this stretch of beach, and diligent beachcombers can often find whole whelks, Scotch Bonnets, olive shells, helmet conchs, colorful scallops, moon snails, augers, sand dollars, and a variety of other shells.
Neighboring these beaches, the Cape Hatteras lighthouse welcomes thousands of visitors every year who test their stamina by climbing to the very top for birds’ eye views of the Outer Banks. A visitors’ center and gift shop, picnic area, and self-guided maritime nature trails offer secondary attractions to lighthouse visitors.
With the intersecting Labrador and Gulf Stream currents off of Cape Point, creating rough surf and shifting sandbars miles into the ocean, the waters off of Buxton are also known as the Diamond Shoals and the Graveyard of the Atlantic. The Diamond Shoals caused hundreds of shipwrecks throughout the past four centuries, as Hatteras and Ocracoke Inlets were important ports to early mariners, but dangerous ones as well. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is, in fact, one of the tallest lighthouses in the world simply because it had to be to warn ships 15-20 miles off the coast that the treacherous Diamond Shoals were in their path.
Modern day visitors don’t need to worry about shipwrecks, however, and can simply relax and enjoy Buxton’s beautiful beaches, well known as some of the best fishing, shelling, and surfing beaches in the country. For a fishing adventure with the country’s tallest night light ion the background, Buxton is an ideal destination.
