This last summer (August 2001), I had the opportunity to visit most of the arcades at the Outer Banks. I decided to take an afternoon trip and visit as many of the arcades as I could. I was interested in discovering how many arcades were still operating, and what games were on location. I drove down most of Beach Road, and then traveled down the Bypass Road. I stopped at every location where you could see "Arcade" advertised from the road. I'm certain that I missed a couple of the smaller arcades--it's easy to do when most of the fishing piers have a couple of games set up in the corner. But I'm pretty sure I covered the majority of the arcades.

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	Avalon Fishing Pier MP6, Beach Road The Avalon is fishing pier with a decent arcade selection. They had about 30 arcade games, and 4 - 5 pins. They even have a "Classic Corner" where they have about six classic games. Only half of the games are truely classics, but it was very nice to see an arcade that had space dedicated to 80s games. Unfortunately, on the day that we went to the Avalon we noticed that a large number of games were out of order. Only half the pins were working, many videos were out of order or turned off, and all of the games could have been cleaned.
	Flippers at Whalebone Junction MP16 1/2, Beach Road Flippers has a fairly small game room with about a dozen or so games located in one room. There is a nice variety of games so that young kids and adults should find something fun to play. Sadly, there are no classics at this arcade. Games were in generally good shape, and look to be well maintained.
	Kitty Hawk Pier MP1 1/2, Beach Road We stopped here because most of the piers have a game room. I seem to remember a few games at Kitty Hawk Pier when I was young. Well, we did find a game. A single, solitary game. Mortal Kombat? No. Tekken? Nope. Ms. Pac Man. Still earning her keep, we found Ms. Pac fighting for women's rights on this pier.
	Paradise Golf & Arcade MP5, ByPass Road Paradise is probably a better place to go for golf than for games. The mini golf course is actually real grass, not artificial turf. Inside their arcade, they have a modest number of games. It is worth pointing out that they had a Bride of Pin*pot pinball. Games were in very good shape, clean, and appeared to be very well maintained.
	Surf Slide & Games MP10 1/2, ByPass Road Well, I guess this wouldn't be a complete article if I didn't at least mention the Surf Slide & Games arcade. This is the arcade that I used to go to when I was younger. We would come to the slide and spend an afternoon riding the water slide and playing games. Both are closed now. The water park has been replaced with a much nicer and larger water park down the road. The arcade has been replaced by a the Surf & Turf Arcade a few miles down the road. We risked life, limb, and a police warning to get these pictures.
	Surf & Turf Buffet and Arcade MP16, ByPass Road Well, they can't spell "Arcade", but they do know how to build a decent arcade. They advertise as having over 100 games. They probably do, but not all of them are videos and pinballs. Inside we found a few classics on location still earning their keep, including a Centipede and a Ms. Pac Man. They had by far the largest pinball selection, and is THE place to go to play pins. They also had huge banks of driving games, and a fair share of redemption machines. The games, overall, were in very good condition. The condition of the pins varied from game to game, and a couple of games could have been in better condition. Overall, however, this is probably the arcade to visit.

Later in the week, I noticed that there were a few arcades that I missed. Namely, there were games set up in the Dairy Queen, a bowling center, the local Carnival, and an arcade as soon as you cross the Sound (Mile Post 1). They'll have to wait until next year...

This is no Jersey Shore, that's for sure. But for a quiet, out of the way place, there are still one or two arcades worth visiting.