Kill Devil Hills is the most populous settlement on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It’s home to the Wright Brothers National Memorial – a strange place where North Carolinians celebrate a half-assed achievement by some dudes from Ohio…

It’s also home to a stretch of public-access beach driving that every road trip adventurer should give a try that runs the length of the town (less than 5 miles). This portion is only open during what some would call the “off season” for a beach town, i.e. fall and winter.

Anyone can purchase a driving pass for the full season – I recommend the Stop N’ Shop. You’ll get a handy-dandy map and information packet – this will tell you where all the vehicle access points are. Unlike other beach driving in the Outer Banks, not every Kill Devil Hills access point provides enough space for you to park and air down before hitting the sand. There are plenty of places to air down though – I highly recommend you do first as many of the access points are challenging.

Arch Street is the northern-most access point, allowing you to travel the full length of the beach side, down to Eighth Street (the southern-most point). Be careful though – past Eighth street is Nags Head, which has beach driving access but only to Nags Head residents. North of Arch Street is Kitty Hawk and Southern Shores – DON’T DRIVE ON THOSE BEACHES as it’s not permitted but also not easily marked as such.

The beach itself is easily traversable the more north you are – the sand isn’t too soft and airing down to 15-18 psi is the perfect range for these beaches. In between Walker and Fifth street is the Avalon Fishing Pier – a place where you are permitted to drive underneath. I highly recommend you do this – simply because it’s cool!

The more south you travel, the softer the sand becomes. Past the pier, you really don’t want to run anything more than 15 psi unless you have the experience of driving to not get stuck. Let me give you an example:

While traversing the northern part of the beach in middle November, there was one point where I wanted to try 20 psi and almost instantly regretted it – I realized I could not stop unless I was in a good stopping point or I would get stuck in the soft/wet stuff. While crossing a particularly sketchy section of beach, the Jeep started bogging down while in 4th gear low range. I downshifted to 3rd and gave it a boot-full – rpms shot right up to 4k and I could feel the momentum building back up but it still wasn’t easy – I had to stay in it for a good bit until we hit harder sand.

Once settled, the lady looked at me and said “you were sh*ting bricks for a moment there, weren’t you?” I seriously was and almost immediately aired back down to 15psi for the remainder of the day.

You’re permitted to be on the beach during daylight hours. The official rules are 30 minutes before or after sunset/sunrise. You can risk pushing it but again, be careful. Law enforcement agents both drive marked vehicles but also patrol the dunes on foot, looking for people breaking the rules in an egregious fashion.

Whatever you do – just remember to air down and support the local economy. Allowances such as this are rare and should be treated with respect.