For those familiar with the story of "Brad's Drink"—known today as Pepsi-Cola—North Carolina's lower coast needs no introduction. People of more recent vintage may remember headless Joe Baldwin, the Lumina, the Ghost Fleet of Wilmington, Hurricane Hazel, and the Fort Fisher hermit.

Historians have remarked on the irony that Masonboro Island—perhaps the first piece of American coast written about by a European—is now deserted. North Carolina's lower coast is not bothered by such contradictions. It is home to pristine settings like Cape Lookout and Hammocks Beach State Park, historical treasures like Fort Macon, Beaufort, Wilmington, and New Bern's Tryon Palace, and popular tourist spots like the Crystal Coast, Pleasure Island, and the Battleship North Carolina.

The 13 tours in this book introduce the sights and history of the lower coast. Those visitors who begin in the north with the ferry to Portsmouth village and partake of the golf-cart ride around Bald Head Island may well find themselves all the way south in Calabash, lining up for dinner with the rest of the crowd.