Sunset Beach
Sunset Beach, NC
Sunset Beach anchors the southernmost tip of North Carolina's coast, walkable all the way toward South Carolina along the undeveloped dunes of Bird Island. The old one-lane swing bridge that once made this the hardest beach town to reach is gone, replaced by a modern arc bridge in 2010, though the slower pace it created stuck around.
The walk out to undeveloped Bird Island is genuinely unlike anything else on this stretch of coast, though it takes real time and there's nothing out there once you arrive but sand and the mailbox.
How we score beachesWalk the 40th Street access out to Bird Island's mailbox, a wooden post where visitors leave notes for strangers. It's about a mile and a half each way, so budget close to two hours round trip.
Paid parking runs April through October, 9am to 5pm, at metered spaces near Main Street and 40th Street and along N Shore Drive. Outside those hours and months, it's free.
The 40th Street access has a boardwalk over the dune. The walk out to Bird Island itself is entirely open sand, flat but soft in places.
Dogs are banned from the beach 9am to 6pm during summer, the Friday before Memorial Day through Labor Day. Outside that window, and the rest of the year, leashed dogs are welcome anytime.
Water warms into the upper 70s by August, during the same hurricane season, June through November, that runs the length of the Carolina coast. Fall brings some of the calmest walking weather for the trip out to Bird Island.
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