Our Upcoming Vacation Plans

I prearranged for my vacation at work to coincide with my wife's birthday in July so I could relax and enjoy too. We looked at brochures and theme parks and more theme parks until we both realized that they were way too expensive to consider, at least till the economy relaxed. We decided to rent a place in a location we have never been to. Let's see, that accounts for about 95+% of the United States, let alone the world. Well, we both like the east coast and love the ocean so that narrowed down the field a bit.

We live in Florida but grew up in New England so it would be somewhere in between. We've both been to Bermuda(with other people, not each other) and that was great but pricey right now. We both like enough things to do in the area without having too much going on to make it hectic to be around. South Carolina and North Carolina were the narrowed down locals and S.C. has some nice amenities like golf but I gave that up, she doesn't play and combined it made no sense. N.C. has some great beach-front areas that are populated but not packed. What we decided on was the Outer Banks, an area I've always heard of but never had the opportunity to see, let alone go to. My uncle, up till 2 years ago, lived in Charlotte N.C. so I asked his opinion and he gave it a hardy 2 thumbs up. I think it was a hardy 2 thumbs up because I called him on the phone and he said it was. He told me that since we both enjoyed the ocean that this would be a great relaxing place to go and that we should look into renting an apartment instead of a hotel due to the cost. He said an apartment had the kitchen and cooking areas that hotels don't and we could save a bunch of money shopping for food and not worry about purchases being taken from our room since we had the only access to it. He sold us on it so I made the reservations for a rental unit in a place called Bayberry Bluffs near another place called Duck Village. With names like those I don't think there will be late night parties going on too often. I'll write back in July or August with the final opinions.