Best Beach in North Carolina

There are many beach communities in North Carolina - Outer Banks, Wilmington, Carolina Beach, Topsail... the list goes on. I have had the opportunity to visit many of these beaches, and I've finally picked my favorite... Kure Beach! Never heard of it? Exactly.

While I absolutely LOVE the Outer Banks, it took me literally 3 hours to go 5 miles on the way to our beach house on my last visit. No thank you! Wilmington and Carolina beaches are well-known and I've found that they often become quite crowded during the summer months (winter months are a whole different story!).

Kure Beach is located on Pleasure Island (I kid you not, that's what it's called). This is an island near Wilmington and is home to Carolina Beach, Fort Fisher and, of course, Kure Beach. Now I'll add this note here - it's pronounced kurr - ee beach, not "cure." #LocalInsight

The reason I've landed on Kure Beach as my favorite beach is for several reasons. Let's start with parking. If you want FREE, UNLIMITED parking, Kure beach is for you! Just look for spots near the pier! That's the key - stay near the pier. Not only, is there parking, but you can also stop in the pier for a convenient bathroom, any forgotten items (towel, sunscreen, sunglasses) and some seriously delicious ice cream. It's the perfect spot!

The beach is nice and comparable to other good ole Carolina Beaches, but the convenience found at Kure beach really seals the deal for me. I actually lived and worked on Pleasure Island for a summer, and I tried all the beaches in town. Time and time again I found myself heading over to Kure beach for easy parking and a nice, relaxing day in the sun. If you are ever in the area, check it out! Even the hotels and beach houses are a smidge cheaper (but by no means cheap) than those in the surrounding area. It's honestly a lovely place to spend a vacation and I highly recommend it!

If you'd like some recommendations for other travel ideas, I'd love to help! Shoot me an email at
Malena@MilesIntoMemoreisTravel.com or visit my website at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

Camping Retreat in the Mountains

First and foremost, I've started a travel company! It's called Miles Into Memories Travel, and we arrange international trips and tours for everyone from families to sports teams to groups of all kind. I'm really proud of our quality trips and would love for you to check out our website: MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

Keep an eye on this space for more travel stories - I've gone on several truly epic adventures over the past few months (blog posts are coming, I promise!) but I wanted to kick back off with my most recent trip. A couple of friends and I decided we needed a little break from the city life. Sometimes, it's easy to find yourself stuck in a rut. When that happens, I like to shake things up and go on mini adventures.

In this case, that meant a quick weekend trip to the mountains. I've lived in North Carolina for years, but haven't really had a chance to "leaf peep." Yes, that's a real term, believe it or not. So here we are!

We opted for a remote camp site and it was beautiful, but definitely a hike. We knew it would be a ten minute walk, but they didn't mention that it was straight down (and thus straight back up to get to our car.) Talk about a work out!

So beautiful.

We brought two pups with us! This is Lambda. She's only 3 months old and, turns out, she's scared of bridges. We went on a 5 miles hike and both dogs did great! Lambda managed to overcome her fear of bridges and had a blast!

And this here is my guy! Miles is 10 years old and sweet as can be. I carried him over some rocks and rivers, but he definitely had a ton of fun trekking with his buddies.

Where we camped out!

Me and Sky! Why my hat is crooked, we'll never know.

Family picture! (Pictures are hard when you're a puppy)

To sum up, we had a blast, got away from the city and ate some s'mores. We had a great time hiking, lighting camp fires and just getting away from screens. We barely had any cell service and in a way, that was really nice. It forced us to talk and relax and enjoy nature. Adventures don't always have to be big and international to be fun.