This was amazing! I love all the history displayed here. It's really well maintained and there are lots of placards with info and cool facts. There's an audio tour you can do by calling in and it'll have posts with numbers for prompts. It's definitely worth a stop. There's boardwalks for a lot of the pathways and beach access to the sound and the ocean. The have opened up the old keeper's quarters and turned it into a museum (free entry) with information about the lighthouse and some history of the barrier islands.
The beach looks very clean and well taken care of, worst I found was an area need the visitor center that had some scattered cigarette butts. But it was easy enough to clean up. The water is much cleaner now. In September of 2018 Hurricane Florence wreaked some havoc, but it all seems to have been sorted out.