"My Second Home"

My family and I have travelled to the Outer Banks every summer since 2013, so for more than half of my lifetime by now. The Outer Banks is like a second home for me. Of course, the place is known for its beaches (which, from personal experience, I can say are super good!). However, throughout the years, I have noticed that there is also so much more to this collection of islands: good food, fun destinations, and a place to make fantastic family memories. I will explain my journey of travelling to the Outer Banks every summer since I was eight years old and all the new things I have learned along the way.

The first three years I went to this place, almost everyone on my dad’s extended side of the family would go, and we would all stay in one huge house usually for an entire week. My dad is one of nine children, and his side of the family has a lot of people (many aunts, uncles, and cousins), so there would always be many relatives to hang out with. I do not remember the features of the first house we stayed at very well, but I definitely remember the second house we stayed at much better (in 2014 and 2015). The house consisted of many, many steps with (if I am remembering right) five floors. When we entered the house, the stairs were right in front of us. There was nothing else on the first floor except maybe a closet. The middle floors consisted of bedrooms, and the final floor led to one room: a big dining room where the entire family would eat dinner. 

I remember being in this dining room the first night we stayed in 2014, and my aunt made delicious meatballs for all of us to eat when we arrived. My extended family created many traditions during these trips. For example, we would all play Monopoly every night. We would end up playing super late, and, one by one, different family members would quit the game and go to bed. It was interesting to my nine-year-old brain at the time to see the progression of my family members leaving the game, and then, at some point, my parents would let me know it was my turn. We would sometimes also play Monopoly during the day. I remember playing it with my mom and grandmother once and crushing both of them! At one point, my grandma had $1 left in the game.

Another memory I have from these first three summers at the Outer Banks is when my dad, sister, cousin, and I were at the beach during a thunderstorm. At first, it was a nice, sunny day as usual, the sky bright and the ocean vast. My sister, cousin, and I, all being little children at the time, played some fun and silly games in the ocean. However, we surprisingly started feeling some raindrops. Little raindrops turned to more, and then it was fully raining before we knew it. We thought it was so cool how it was raining while we were in the water—we found this never-before experienced phenomenon to be fascinating. Yet, this part of the fun ended very quickly after we heard thunder. At that point, my dad told us we all had to get out of the ocean for our safety. I remember swimming to shore, looking around me and seeing the black sky and the dark waves. When we were swimming out, we were the only people still left in the water. I felt so amazed that we were alone in this massive ocean. I was the last one out, swimming in the midst of a thunderstorm with the sky dark all around me.

During these next three years I went to this beach house with my grandmother, I became a lot closer to her. I was in middle school during this time, and I remember always collecting seashells whenever we would go to the beach and then showing them to my grandma. I can picture holding the shells in my hand, each one being of a unique color and texture. I would hand the shells one at a time to my grandma. She would look at them and say that each of them looked very nice, each and every one of them. We would always carry the shells I found back to the beach house, and for a while, we formed a collection of them.

Eventually, my grandmother decided she wanted to buy a beach house so that we would not have to keep renting one every year. By 2019, when I was starting high school, she was able to buy a house for a good price. However, this new house was located in a completely different town in the Outer Banks, not the town we had stayed at all the previous years. This new town was much more commercial and less residential. We initially did not like the new beach that much; we found it a lot dirtier, we had to cross a busy street to get there, and I was not able to find seashells as easily along the shore. However, we learned to appreciate certain aspects of the town later on. For example, there were restaurants and grocery stores everywhere, which became very convenient.

There were some other very cool destinations we discovered near this beach house. There is a park called “Jockey’s Ridge” just ten minutes away from the house, which is full of sand dunes! My dad, sister, grandma, and I went to this park the first year we stayed at the new beach house. To get to the sand dunes, we first had to go across a wooden walkway. The walkway ended on a pier, and then we could climb down to walk on the sand. My grandmother stayed on the pier, but my dad, sister, and I continued walking in the park. We found a steep sand hill to walk on, and when we reached the top, I was amazed at what I saw. In front of me, I saw massive sand dunes that looked like a desert. The dunes extended so wide, and they rolled softly into the horizon, leaving room for a vastly open sky with thick white clouds. This was an amazing experience I had. I never knew I could experience a desert-like place in a location such as the Outer Banks.

We stayed at my grandmother’s beach house every summer from 2019 to 2025. We vacationed there with my grandma the first year, but she would go separately from my immediate family the following years. I eventually became really comfortable staying in this house. My “second home”—the Outer Banks as a whole—could finally be assigned to a set location, beyond just a house we knew we would only rent for a few years. Unfortunately, things do not always go as planned. Our entire family was devastated when my grandmother passed away last year. Her beach house was sold last month, and Columbus Day weekend was the last time my family and I ever stayed there. I still remember being at that house, looking out the window and seeing a “Comfort Inn” hotel and two traffic lights that were always red across the street. The view looked especially striking during the night. I remember sitting on the front porch of this house during those nights, feeling the soft breeze of the wind hit my face so comfortably. I would think about many memories on that porch, especially those about my grandmother. Even after we stopped going to the Outer Banks with her, and even after her death, I would always be reminded of her at that house. She was the person who introduced us to that house, that neighborhood, that new town. Whenever I was back at that house, or even at the Outer Banks in general, I would naturally always think of her. I believe I still feel her presence whenever we travel to the Outer Banks, and that is because she was always with us there, at least in our hearts. Truly then, family is what makes a destination feel like a home.