Rodanthe, North Carolina

Rodanthe is the northernmost of the Hatteras Island villages, reached by crossing the new Basnight Bridge over the Pamlico Sound from Whalebone Junction. Along with neighboring Waves and Salvo, it forms what locals call the Tri-Villages — all three were once part of a single settlement known as Chicamacomico, an Algonquian name meaning roughly "sinking down sand."

Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station

Rodanthe's landmark is the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station, built in 1874 as the first of seven such stations established in North Carolina to rescue sailors wrecked along the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Its crew's most famous rescue came in 1918, when they saved 42 crew members of the torpedoed British tanker Mirlo using rowboats, under fire from the German U-boat that had attacked it. The station operated continuously until 1954 and is now the most complete surviving life-saving station complex in the state, open as a museum.

A Barrier Island on the Move

Rodanthe sits on one of the narrowest, most storm-exposed stretches of Hatteras Island, which is why NC-12 here was rerouted onto the 2.4-mile Basnight Bridge in 2022 — locally called the "Jug Handle Bridge" — after decades of the old road repeatedly washing out. The village itself is a compact strip of oceanfront rental cottages and a modest year-round fishing community.