Getting the flavor of ... North Carolina’s chic coast

North Carolina’s chic coast

When I visited Wrightsville Beach, N.C., years ago, the town was known for “sand-filled vacations” and preppies in Sperry Top-Siders, said Amanda McClements Martin in The Washington Post. Today, this stretch of North Carolina’s southern coast is “unexpectedly urbane,” synonymous with upscale boutiques and “designer stilettos.” I tested out pair after pair of Loeffler Randall sandals at Beanie + Cecil—a shop with “up-to-the-minute designer duds”—then decorated “my imaginary beach house” with embroidered pillows and white upholstered furniture from home-furnishings store Hewitt. After several hours spent shopping, I treated myself to some sparkling wine and a massage at Porter’s Neck Yoga & Spa, and then to “briny Kumamoto oysters” at Brasserie du Soleil, a “pitch-perfect” Parisian-style bistro. No longer the “laid-back beach town I remember,” Wrightsville Beach may now be something better. Contact: Capefearcoast.com

Lake Erie’s idle island

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Pelee Island “forces you to do nothing,” said Josh Noel in the Chicago Tribune. On this sparsely populated, wooded island in the western half of Lake Erie, “excitement comes in the form of a pilgrimage to the old stone lighthouse.” There are no sites to see except the Pelee Island Winery and “miles of gentle, swaying soybean fields.” Pelee Island is Canada’s southernmost populated point—it sits just two miles from the Ohio side of the lake—and visitors looking to enjoy the island’s easy life can hop a ferry from mainland Canada or the United States. One warm afternoon, I pedaled a three-speed bike across the “flat, open” island, cruising past a red-brick schoolhouse as a “flawless summer breeze” kept me cool. At Fish Point Nature Reserve, on the southern end, I dismounted and began a mile-long walk through thick woods, finally emerging to find a “gloriously wide view” of the entire island.

Contact: Pelee.com