North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island

The aquarium is organized as a journey that follows water across the whole of North Carolina. It begins with the cold, clear streams of the mountains and their trout, then moves down into the blackwater rivers and cypress swamps of the coastal plain, where alligators and freshwater fish live, before reaching the brackish sounds behind the barrier islands and finally the salt of the Atlantic.

This structure gives the visit a sense of place that a random collection of tanks would not. By the end, a visitor understands how the state's waters connect, how a raindrop in the Blue Ridge eventually reaches the sea, and how each stretch of that journey supports its own web of life. It makes the aquarium a lesson in North Carolina geography as much as a display of animals.

The heart of the aquarium is its large ocean tank, a deep saltwater exhibit where sand tiger sharks, other sharks, and large ocean fish circle among schools of smaller fish. The tank is built around a recreation of the sunken USS Monitor, the famous Civil War ironclad that in real life lies on the ocean floor off Cape Hatteras, tying the exhibit to the very real shipwrecks that litter this stretch of coast.

Those wrecks are no accident. The waters off the Outer Banks, known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic for the many ships lost there, are treacherous with shifting shoals and storms, and the aquarium uses its ironclad centerpiece to connect its living sharks to that dramatic maritime history. Divers enter the tank for feedings and talks, giving visitors a close look at the sharks and the people who care for them.

Beyond the big tank, the aquarium is home to sea turtles, playful river otters, alligators, stingrays, and a wide range of coastal creatures, many of them favorites with children. The sea turtles are a special focus, as the aquarium takes part in the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of sick or injured turtles found along the coast, and it shares that work with visitors.

Conservation runs through the whole institution. As a state aquarium, it is dedicated not only to displaying sea life but to protecting it, from breeding programs to public education about the threats facing coastal waters. That mission connects it to its sister sites down the coast and to Jennette's Pier across the sound, which the aquariums also operate.

The aquarium's setting is as storied as its exhibits. Roanoke Island was the site of England's first attempts to colonize North America in the 1580s, culminating in the famous Lost Colony, whose settlers vanished without a trace and whose fate remains one of the great mysteries of American history. The nearby town of Manteo and the historic sites around it keep that story alive.

Today the island makes a rich base for exploring the northern Outer Banks. Manteo is a charming waterfront town with a working replica of a sixteenth-century sailing ship, the Elizabethan Gardens bloom nearby, and across the sound lie the beaches of Nags Head, the great dune of Jockey's Ridge, and the site of the first flight at Kill Devil Hills.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.