Experience the best of Carolina Beach

Carolina Beach sits on Pleasure Island, a narrow peninsula between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic, south of Wilmington on the North Carolina coast. Its boardwalk has shops, arcades and ice cream stands, and the beach is a wide stretch of sand backed by low dunes. A fishing pier reaches into the surf at neighbouring Kure Beach, and Snow's Cut, a canal for the Intracoastal Waterway, separates the island from the mainland.

Carolina Beach State Park has maritime forest, trails and a marina, and the Venus flytrap, a carnivorous plant that grows wild only in this part of the Carolinas, can be seen in its bogs. At Fort Fisher, an earthwork fort fell in January 1865 and closed Wilmington, the last Confederate port, and a state aquarium stands nearby. A short ferry crosses the river to Southport, and Wilmington's historic riverfront is a short drive north.

Seafood shacks serve shrimp, hushpuppies and oysters, and the boardwalk sells doughnuts and funnel cake. The beach season runs from late spring to early autumn, and the winter sea is grey and quiet.