Peak Season/Off Season, Which do you Prefer?

After 5 years of full time travel, coast to coast and border to border....having visited numerous sights at peak tourist season and during the off season we continuously come to the same conclusion. We, by far, prefer the off season. It is not even close.

When else would you get pictures like this? 

Custer State Park in April

Or see a 10 foot snow bank?

Lassen National Park in March

Oh, there are some tradeoffs and it definitely depends on what you want to see and do in a specific location but for us, the quiet seclusion of the off season is the best way to go. 

But once in a while you do question your sanity

South Dakota November 

There is no better example of this than our home town of Custer South Dakota. Peak tourist there, like many summer-centric locations, is basically from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Kids are out of school, the sun hovers overhead and daylight hours go well into the evening. In Custer, everything is in full swing. Every business is booming, there are waiting lines at the restaurants, and the local attractions filled to capacity. This is a time we try to avoid town altogether.

But then you are rewarded with sights like this!

 But even after Labor Day the tourists don’t stop. Once the kids are back in school these locations start to see a different type of tourist. Many foreign tourists have waited for this time to visit these sights. In fact, many tour companies cater specifically to these travelers. This is also the time an entirely different demographic hits the road. The locals refer to them as “The newlyweds and nearly-deads”. The pre-nesters and empty nesters who are not tied to life centered around school hours. 

Crater Lake National Park in March

For us, there is no better time than to visit some of these iconic locations than the months of November through May. Oh sure, there are some downsides. Some of the attractions are closed, many of the souvenir shops are closed. Some restaurants and motels are even closed. But these are travel stoppers...... We are not there for souvenirs and dining where the locals eat is always a plus. 

You also get the trails to yourselves!

We were again reminded of this as we work our way south from Pennsylvania to Florida in mid-December. Campground after campground we had our pick of spots, in a couple places we were one of only 3 or 4 campers in the entire place!  

After leaving Assateague Island we headed south to the Cape Charles area where we enjoyed two rainy days at Eastern Shores Welcome Center where they allow you to stay for 48 hours free of charge (no hookups). This was the only free spot we were able to find on our journey south. It is just parking lot but since it was raining almost the entire time we were there we just enjoyed listening to the rain pitter patter on the roof while we read and watched a few movies. 

From there we were off to the Outer Banks! Along the way we had to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel where for the first time ever we drove underwater! The bridge/tunnel combination is 20 miles long and has two mile long sections that go underwater and allows ship traffic to pass overhead. 

20 miles of bridge!

Headed underwater!

We have read over a dozen blog posts of people who had visited the Outer Banks and were excited to see it for ourselves. ALL of the campgrounds in the area were closed except the Cape Hatteras KOA which was offering a 25% off-season discount. 

There was one other rig in the park but they managed to squeeze us in right along the beach.

We spent our days walking the beach. The dogs went crazy running and running. Dakota loves to run in the surf and has finally learned not to drink the salt water. Another bonus of off-season is the last two parks had relaxed leash rules on the beach between Labor Day and May 1st.

Dakota of course headed right for the water!

The entire beach to ourselves!

The bird on the right only had one leg and would hope around everywhere

One interesting thing about the area is all the wind and sand. There is so much sand blowing that there are drifts along the road that they have to use heavy equipment to move pretty much constantly.  

The sand drifts along the road were over 10' tall!

We also visited the Cape Hatteras and Bodie Island Lighthouses while in the area. The temps were in the mid 50’s so it was quite comfortable and we were virtually the only people visiting the lighthouses. The downside was we could not walk up to the top as they were closed for the season. 

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Bodie Lighthouse

The other downside of the area….. The Dairy Queen was closed! The humanity! But, we did get to have our first Duck Donuts experience! For those of you who have never been to one they make donuts to order. You go in there and take an order menu selecting the toppings you would like on your donut. Apple, bacon, coconut, chocolate, maple…. Pretty much anything you can think of. Then they fry the donuts and make them on the spot. Delicious!

We also visited the town of Kitty Hawk where, you guessed it, is the home of the Wright Brothers National Memorial. With free access using our National Park Pass, we walked the visitors center reading many of the displays. It is amazing what they did in the early 1900’s with the tools and equipment they had.

We walked the very spot where Orville and Wilbur took the first flights.

Each of these markers represent where each of the 4 flights landed

We also walked up to the Wright Memorial which overlooks the First Flight area. 

Barb joined in on the first flight!

Our bonus adventure in the area was visiting the Oregon Inlet famous as the port for the show Wicked Tuna Outer Banks. We toured the marina and saw The Fishin' Frenzy, one of the boat from the show.

We are not really into the touristy things like waterparks, paddle boarding and swimming in the ocean so we don’t feel we missed much in this area coming in the off season. Oh, wait, we did not have the humidity and mosquitoes that is prevalent in the summer months, so I guess we did miss those two things! 

While in Carolina Beach we stayed at the Carolina Beach State Park ($15/night no hookups). Again it rained pretty much the entire time we were here but we did manage to get out on a couple of hikes and do our first Navy ship tour when we toured the USS Carolina Battleship. Let me tell you it was well worth the $14 each! But we had a problem even before we got there. With all the rain the parking lot was flooded! I drove through the water and dropped Barb off at the front door but I had to wade through the water after parking the truck!

The parking lot. That small dot in the middle is the top of a fire hydrant!

The complexity of the ship was incredible. 9 levels; it took us over two hours to tour the ship. The tour is self guided and although they have directional signs we got turned around a number of times and probably missed parts of it. We only crossed paths with one other person in the entire 2 hours!

We have never really given them much thought and the fact that it is really a city within itself. It had a post office, dentist, barber, doctors office, metal machine room to make parts from scratch. You name it, it had it!

One of the ships stores

The bunks were 5 high!

One of several turret aiming stations

Powder being loading into gun

Powder stores

Ships wheel and controls

The battleship is a must see if you are in the area!

Our time in Carolina Beach is done and it is now time to move on. We are off to Myrtle Beach where hopefully the rains will subside and the sun will shine!