Saturday Outbound OBX Traffic Gets Frustrating

Outbound 158 traffic backed up Saturday to Wilkins St. in Kitty Hawk

Each Saturday Morning I host the Extended Edition of the Other Side of Fishing from 6:30 to 8:30 with Captain Marty. In previous years, I’ve always been amazed at the number of vehicles leaving the Outer Banks on my way to Beach104’s Nags Head studio. After all, it was before 6:00 AM, and cars were already motoring through Currituck County. This year, it’s a bit different. Vacationers really don’t want to leave the Outer Banks. We’ve heard about people staying down here for two and three weeks at a time. And it appears many vacationers, who stay  the standard seven days, are waiting until the last minute to check out. Saturday exodus backups have paralleled or exceeded the Saturday influx. (Duck and Corolla are a different discussion)

This past Saturday’s 158 vehicle parade at 11:00 stretched past WRV in Kitty Hawk. For years, area residents would avoid Kitty Hawk bypass traffic by going the Woods Road. There was a time, if someone heard another local resident share this Woods Road knowledge with a vacationer, the info giver might be shunned forever and forced to move (slight exaggeration) But the Woods Road word is out, and if you think you’ll save a bunch of time making the left turn after the 7-11, you’ll be greatly mistaken. One could speculate this traffic is comprised of people who stayed in Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, and Hatteras Island. So, my suggestion is, if a person’s on vacation in the aforementioned spots, and they don’t want their final memory of OBX Vacation 2020 to be sitting in a long traffic jam, either leave real early, or you can check out at the standard time, do a fun activity, eat lunch inside or outside your favorite restaurant, and then head back home in a steady forward direction. In the spirit of full disclosure,  if this vacation exit plan helps me get home quicker, I won’t complain.