LOOK ACROSS the low dunes, with their clumps of wind-ruffled beach grass, and there are miles of sands washed by the grey Atlantic waves with, every so often, a weather-worn home on stilts or a hooped lighthouse in black and white.
Little harbour towns also dot the coastline of North Carolina. Over the state line into South Carolina the climate becomes warmer and more humid, the marshy creeks full of swaying beds of sawgrass and reeds.