Which is which? Can we have a chart, please?
This board is waaaay too quietly lately, so to start a discussion, I'll give my hot take. Going north to south:
Outer Banks beaches
Corolla - scenic; wild horses; big ass rental houses; almost exclusively non-North Carolinians (i.e., Yankees)
Duck - scenic; fancy shopping; mostly Yankees
Kitty Hawk/Kill Devil Hills/Nags Head - cool touristy stuff (Jockey's Ridge; Wright Brothers Memorial); very commercialized; terrible traffic
everything south of Nags Head to Cape Hatteras - beautiful; quiet; mostly visited by ladies who read that Nights in Rodanthe book
Ocracoke - mysterious, because it takes a goddamn dog's age to get there; old lighthouse; locals have weird accent
Crystal Coast beaches
Atlantic Beach/Pine Knoll Shores/Emerald Isle - lumping these all together because I've been, but don't typically go here and can't distinguish among them; my impression is that these are visited mostly by people from eastern NC and are more blue collar; somewhat commercialized, but not overly so; not as scenic as other NC beaches
Topsail beaches
North Top Sail Beach/Surf City/Topsail Beach - uncomfortably close to too many Marines; quickly disappearing into the sea;
New Hanover beaches
Wrightsville - my overall favorite beach, especially if going with just Wife; closest beach to Raleigh; expensive; excellent restaurants; a handful of cool bars; walkable; ridiculously crowded on summer weekends from people driving over for day
Carolina Beach - used to be redneck beach (so redneck that even Rubbins was uncomfortable there - true story), but quickly getting nicer, although everyone working at shops along Boardwalk seem to be on meth; very commercialized, plenty of bars and restaurants
Kure Beach - rental houses; less crowded; close to Fort Fisher and the Aquarium
Brunswick County beaches
Bald Head Island - never been, mostly because it seems like a pain in the ass to get to, but I have friends who go regularly and like it
Oak Island - this is where my family goes; pretty quiet; mostly North Carolinians; more modest houses, but still nice and not many rednecks; enough restaurants to get by; not much to do on the island other than hang on the beach; kind of feels like going back in time
Holden Beach - quiet and uncrowded; not much by way of restaurants or bars or stuff to do other than hang on beach
Ocean Isle - a lot of boats with the canals; more commercialized; mostly North Carolinians
Sunset Beach - fried seafood; too close to South Carolina for my tastes