Wright Brothers Museum - North Carolina Field Trip

This past summer my family and I were able to visit the Wright Brothers Museum while on vacation in Outer Banks, North Carolina. Although most of the children and teens that we took were not too excited about going, they all seemed to enjoy it in the end.

Starting our tour of the Wright Brothers Museum

wright brothers museum

We started out at the visitor center where we were able to look over portraits and artifacts from the Wright brothers era all the way up to the present. We stayed and listened to a presentation given about the history of the Wright brothers. We heard about how they got started all the way through each of their flights and the hardships they encountered along the way. I think the presentation was about 45 minutes long. Although the acoustics were a little hard to manage, the talk was very informative and interesting.

After the talk we walked around the visitor center some more and looked at more of the artifacts and pictures. They have the original aircraft there plus some of the tools and device they used along the way.

After that we went outside and looked over their first flight markers and then made the walk up to the monument. We had to be sure to avoid the little cacti in the grass, but as long as we stayed on the path, we were fine. The monument is a massive structure. All around it were different words and each of our children wanted their picture taken by different words. It's actually a quote that goes all the way around the monument. The view from up there was awesome! You can view various photo tours online that will give you an idea of the views that we saw.

After this we went into the Centennial Pavilion and saw even more exhibits of flight along with historic information from the time of the Wright brothers. We were also able to view the hangars and workshops outside that the Wright brothers used.

The museum facilities are right on the main route 158 that runs all along Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head. We were staying in Corolla on the Outer Banks, so it took us about 45 minutes to get there from where we were staying.

All in all, the Wright Brothers Museum was an enjoyable experience with lots of interesting things to see that were organized in an easy to understand manner. The cost was just $4 for anyone who was 16 years old or over. Anyone age 15 and under was free. The park is open every day except Christmas day from 9am-5pm. If you are ever in the Outer Banks area, I highly recommend you visit the Wright Brothers Museum!

They had some great books about the Wright brothers too! You can view them at Wright Brothers books