Open ocean, all the way down.23 Atlantic destinations from the Mid-Atlantic to the Florida Keys.

Bogue Banks's Crystal Coast anchor, Fort Macon State Park, and the Atlantic Beach Causeway across Bogue Sound

The third-oldest town in North Carolina (1709), Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge wreck site, and the boat dock to Cape Lookout National Seashore

Brunswick Plantation Golf Resort's 27 holes, the Calabash-style seafood capital, and the Sunset Beach causeway five miles south

Pleasure Island's Boardwalk-and-Britt's-Donuts anchor, Carolina Beach State Park's Venus flytraps, and the Fort Fisher Civil War earthworks 8 miles south

Down East Carteret County, the Cape Lookout National Seashore Visitor Center, and the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum's decoy-carving heritage

The 1870 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the Graveyard of the Atlantic, and the free 60-minute ferry to Ocracoke

Eight-mile South Brunswick barrier island between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach — a 35-foot building cap, no high-rises, and one of National Geographic's family-beach picks

The North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, the Theodore Roosevelt Natural Area, and the quietest village stretch on Bogue Banks

Three miles of Atlantic strand between Surfside Beach and Murrells Inlet — the oceanfront 690-foot Garden City Pier, Sam's Corner soft-serve, and a working family-condo strand without the high-rise density of Myrtle Beach proper

South Carolina's third-oldest city — a 1729 working colonial port at the convergence of five rivers, Hobcaw Barony's 16,000-acre research preserve, and DeBordieu Colony's private oceanfront gates twelve miles north

South Carolina's foot-shaped barrier island — Sea Pines Resort and the Harbour Town Lighthouse, 12 miles of Atlantic strand, and 60+ miles of paved bike paths through the Lowcountry maritime forest

The "Seafood Capital of South Carolina" — the half-mile MarshWalk boardwalk, eight working-waterfront seafood houses, and the pirate-history salt-marsh estuary at the southern end of the Grand Strand

The Grand Strand's 60-mile Atlantic crescent — the 1.2-mile Boardwalk and Promenade, the 200-foot SkyWheel, and the only oceanfront amusement park on the east coast

Nine miles of Atlantic strand from Cherry Grove to Windy Hill — Carolina Shag's birthplace on Main Street, the rebuilt Cherry Grove Pier, and Barefoot Resort's four championship golf courses

"Arrogantly Shabby" since the 1700s — a four-mile Lowcountry barrier island of weathered grey-shingle cottages, the True Blue Golf Resort, and the original Pawleys Island Rope Hammock

The self-styled "Family Beach" of the Grand Strand — two miles of stilted beach cottages between Myrtle Beach State Park and Garden City, anchored by the rebuilt Surfside Pier

Thirteen miles of Amelia Island shoreline, a 50-block Victorian downtown on Centre Street, and Fort Clinch's Civil War-era ramparts at the north end

The middle of the Florida Keys — Sombrero Beach, the Seven Mile Bridge, the Turtle Hospital, and a deep-water-canal-and-boat-slip rental scene built for the offshore sport-fishing tradition

South Florida's barrier-island playground — Ocean Drive's Art Deco strip, Lincoln Road, the Mid-Beach Faena and Alexander corridor on Collins, and a high-rise condo-hotel rental market unlike anywhere else in the state

National Geographic's #20 World Surf Town — the historic Flagler Avenue strip, 17 miles of drive-on Atlantic beach, and the Canaveral National Seashore at the south end

America's oldest city — Spanish colonial Castillo de San Marcos, 42 miles of Atlantic beach, and Flagler's Gilded Age Hotel Ponce de León

Ten miles of Atlantic beach, a three-mile boardwalk, and the wild horses of Assateague

Ocean View Beach on the Chesapeake Bay — seven miles of bay-side shoreline, the world's largest naval base, and the Battleship Wisconsin docked downtown at Nauticus