Pine Knoll Shores Beach: Bogue Banks Secret #1

Pine Knoll Shores Beach is a solid public beach on Bogue Banks Island with straight forward appeal. With minimal frills and the same great coastal NC beaches, this is a great low cost DIY vacation. With traditionally few public beach options on Bogue Banks, it is worth looking at these beaches closely if you do not intend to spend more than an day here.

Which Shores?

Pine Knoll Shores Beach is located at on Bogue Banks Island to the East of Atlantic City. There are several different beaches on Bogue Banks of which Pine Knoll Shores is one. You can access the island from either the Atlantic City bridge or the Emerald Isle Bridge. Both have this high arching structure over the Atlantic intercostal waterway. The result are amazing views of the island from high up. Try not to gawk too much and stay focused while you drive on the bridge.

For any beach goer, parking can be the biggest frustration. The parking area was all clearly marked, kept up and relatively clean. Oh and parking is FREE (not always a given anymore). The public access points do not have massive parking areas and there are not too many local condo/hotel/houses. As a result you are unlikely to find an overcrowded beach.

The bathrooms worked, the wash off areas were sandy but worked fine and you stepped directly from the parking lot onto the beach. No stair/board walks required (at least for the access closest to the aquarium). These basics can really be an issue for some beaches but these public beach access areas checked all the boxes.

So What. Its Another Pile of Sand.

Yes yes yes and I am sure you have strong opinions of which piles you like and dislike so hear me out. We came on an overcast day so the pictures are less than brilliant. Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves.

When you get closer to Pine Knoll Shores you will notice that the native vegetation will get tall and thick on either side of the road. I am not sure if this is by design or by chance but we love it. This gives the area an element of ruggedness that you do not see in overdeveloped beach areas. Bogue banks island is directly adjacent to the Shackleford Bank and South core Island (Cape Lookout) which have an even more wild esthetic. Cape Lookout is an all time favorite for Kaitlyn and I but requires a heavy time investment to properly enjoy.

Pine Knoll Shores is not widely known besides the aquarium on the north side of the island. Heck they only have 1,300 people living there. Despite being less than 3 square miles, Pine Knoll Shores has several public beach access points that are well maintained. There are hardly any stores in the town. For most people, if they want to get anything they head into Emerald Isle or Atlantic City. This sets the perfect conditions for an accessible oasis that no one is talking about.

There was one funny thing about our visit in April. A pile of old Christmas trees near the public trash cans was in the parking lot. I assume this was a local drop off point for Christmas trees but no-one ever came to pick it up. It had no impact on our trip but it gave us a little chuckle.

Shell Build-up

Once you get past the dunes, you do not have to walk far at all to get to the water. An odd side-effect of this was shells and fragments were pilling. This area of the coast is known for having plenty of shells so we were not surprised they were piling up on the beach . This did make it hard at times to avoid sharp shell shards so we wore our sandals a bit more than normal. Nonetheless we found plenty of great shells for a public beach. Little spirals, conch shells and scallop shells were not hard to come by. If I was really looking we could have easily found plenty of fair quality ones..

Like most beaches in the area, Pine Knoll Shores beach has a very gentle slop out into the water. You have to walk considerably far into the water before it starts to get deep. This is ideal for playing with kids of all ages.

Normally wind is easy to come by on these beaches so we brought a kite with us. Madilyn had never seen a kite before let alone flown one. All the bright colors got her attention and she insisted on flying it once she realize how it worked. The wind was very weak that day but we were able to get the kite to stay in the air if we walked into the little wind we had. Despite our difficulties with getting the kite up, we really enjoyed it. If you do not already have a cheap kite in your beach kit, consider picking one up. They are easy to pack, can be a lot of fun and there is little consequence if they are broken.

Dogs are allowed on this beach while on leashes less than 16 feet of long. We saw a few people walking/running with dogs during our visit. There is not a hose to rise down the dogs at the public access point we used so be prepared to use a cup/bucket as needed to clean up your 4-legged friend.

Overall

Pine Knoll Shores Beach provides a great beach experience with few frills but delivers on all the main items well. The marquis slow sloping beach of Bogue Banks is found on Pine Knoll Shores also. This beach pairs well with the aquarium to build out a full day trip.

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