Roanoke Island Festival Park

Visit Roanoke Island Festival Park, a 27-acre island across from the Manteo waterfront, where history comes alive, the “natives” are friendly, art and nature surround you, and there’s big fun for everyone--rain or shine--year round. Through a 16th-century ship, living history, an interactive museum and a variety of performing and visual arts, Festival Park is a celebration of Roanoke Island’s place in history as the birthplace of English-speaking America.

In 1584, 23 years before the Jamestown settlement, the dream of an English-speaking nation began on the shores of Roanoke Island. This small island was home to the first temporary English settlements in the New World, sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh during the years 1584 to 1587. Festival Park celebrates this period of Roanoke Island History through history-made-fun and a passion for the arts.

On Elizabeth II, a representative 16th-century sailing ship, you’ll meet sailors like those who sailed across the Atlantic in 1585. Dressed in period garments and speaking Elizabethan dialect, these interpreters bring the history of the voyages to life At the Settlement Site, you’ll encounter soldiers bravely facing the challenges of the New World. By viewing the film The Legend of Two Path, you’ll find out how the 1584 arrival of the English changed the life of the native Roanoke Island population, the Algonquians.

In the Roanoke Adventure Museum, interactive exhibits explore the 400 years of Outer Banks history since America’s beginning. You can site a star with an astrolabe, meet Algonquians through John White drawings, climb aboard a spritsail skiff and hoist her sails, meet a pirate who sailed with Blackbeard, learn about lighthouses and lifesaving, experience duck hunting and a take shopping trip to a 1900s general store.

The spacious Festival Park Art Gallery features monthly changing exhibits by artists from both far and near. The Museum Store offers distinctive gifts, books, jewelry, toys, nautical gifts and more--all with the flavor of the Outer Banks.

To all this add picnic areas, marsh-side boardwalks, a fossil pit, expansive lawns--and you’ll find history, art and fun all rolled into one at Roanoke Island Festival Park!