Friday Day Trips & Destinations: Topsail Island, NC

One of my favorite spots in beautiful North Carolina, is Topsail Island. My family first visited North Topsail Island almost ten years ago, when I was in college. We've visited a lot of different NC beaches since then, but Topsail is my favorite. I enjoy its small town charm, its un-busyness, and less crowdedness.

This year's beach house of choice...

This year, my parents rented a beautiful vacation house, 2nd row, right across from the oceanfront. We had a private walk to the beach, which was lovely. The house itself had two levels- a kitchen on each floor, a screened in porch downstairs with a ping pong table, grill and hammock. There was a large sun deck, plus screened in porch on the 2nd floor, and then a crow's nest on top- perfect for sunning. There were nine of us in the house this year, and we had plenty of room.

My mom and dad with Balian, on the beach...

We spent a lot of time out on the beach, which is what we go to the beach for. Topsail is much further from Myrtle Beach, and we were glad for that this year. It would have been an almost two hour drive to Myrtle from Topsail, and the drive wasn't worth it, just to do some shopping. So, we hit a few of the local beach shops, instead. We found an adorably sweet little bakery, where we had a cupcake ensemble made up to celebrate my mom and dad's anniversary. My mom, my sister, and my sister's mother-in-law went to a cute salon on the island, and they all got their hair cut one afternoon. There were several little boutiques and gift shops, and lots of beach shops, too.

Anniversary cupcakes from the corner bakery down the road...

Sisters... me & Britt.

For us, the trip was mostly about spending time together. My sister and her husband Cory, and Cory's mom came out from Oklahoma... they drove the whole way. We don't get to see them very often, so we wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. We wound up spending our last two evenings of the trio glued to the television, following the OK tornadoes. One of the storms that went through Broken Arrow, was just down the road from where Britt and Cory live, so naturally, they were pretty anxious, being so far from home.

Britt, with our 'brother' Derek...

We took our parents to a wonderful little Italian restaurant, located on the private side of the island, right on the waterfront. We had a lovely family meal together... to the tune of (Ca-CHING!) a few hundred bucks for the nine of us. It was worth it, though!

Our little family on the beach...

The beach was beautiful- not crowded at all. Since we had a private walk, we almost had a private part of the beach. There was always plenty of space to lay out, sit and read, play and have fun! The weather was gorgeous all week. It was even a bit chilly at the start of the week, but it sure did warm up as the week wore on. Everyone got along, and no one wanted to leave.