Let us take you on a Corolla Wild Horse Tour adventure as only we can...

Appreciate the Thrill of the Outer Banks!
Savor our beautiful oceans and wildlife and get your heart pumping with our full fleet of kayaks and 4 x 4s.

Getting There Is Half the Fun!
Enjoy the thrill of our GPS-enabled Jeeps and Polaris Razors.

Choose Your Own Adventure!
Join us for guided Wild Horse Tours. Drive a Jeep or ride in our Safari Trucks.

Wild Horse Tours
Load the crew into our custom safari truck for a 25 mile off-road tour in search of the wild horses! Learn local ecology, as your guide shows you things normally over looked by the untrained eye.As with all our tours, you and your guide will drive right to the top of “Penny Hill” which is the second largest “living” sand dune on the east coast! Here we will stop to take in the view, get pictures and let the kids run wild! This dune is migrating south and has a very steep side that is a highlight to jump down. All our tours offer a lot of narratives on our unique coastal area.
Tour Time: 2 Hours
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ATV Tour
Blaze the trails of over 40 acres on our private conservation area. Climb Penny’s Hill, Corolla’s highest point, a giant living sand dune! Learn about history, ecology, and wildlife seen along the way.
Total Time: 2 Hours
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Jeep Adventure
Cruise Corolla’s famed 4×4 area in one of our safari jeeps for a 25+ mile off-road, self-driven adventure in search of wild horses and other points on interest. Let our guides take the guess work out and lead you through a route chosen for optimum adventure! Drivers 18 and up welcome.
Tour Time: 2 Hours
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4x4 Kayak Tours
Drive off-road into the heart of Corolla’s 4×4 area to a private waterway located behind the second largest living dune on the east coast! Take in the view as you paddle along side your guide while searching for wild horses and other native wildlife!
Tour Time: 3 Hours
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About Us

Corolla Adventures is a family owned and operated business. The Meredith family has been providing vacationers with entertainment for nearly two decades. My late father opened The Waterworks, a watersports rental store in Nags Head during the 1980’s.

My brother and I grew up working alongside our dad, taking on greater challenges as the business rapidly grew. At the height of jet ski popularity we operated 5 locations, stretching from Ocracoke to Corolla. It was during those early years, working while on break from school, that I began to appreciate the impact our activities had on the quality of a family’s vacation.

We offered Jeep rentals as a safe way to tour the northern beaches, while at the same time pioneering the use of GPS technology for wild horse safaris. Customers became their own guides, able to spend quality time with their families while taking charge of their adventures. Using the GPS to concentrate their efforts on finding the ponies and other points of interest left more time for other family activities- like searching for the perfect shell to take home as a souvenier, or maybe just finding a quiet spot to enjoy a picnic they may have packed. We’re still at it and hope to make vacations special for families for many years to come!


Join us anytime for your adventure. We are open YEAR ROUND.

CALL TODAY! 252-453-6899


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Corolla
Big Buck's Homemade Ice Cream

Serving our customers on the Outer Banks since 1994, Big Buck's ice Cream is dedicated serving you “The Best.” We offer a full line of super-premium ice cream products, smoothies, chocolates, and custom-made ice cream cakes! 2 locations are open all year: Duck  and Manteo, at The Waterfront Shops.

 

We offer a full line of Espresso Drinks from Hot Vanilla Cappuccinos and Hot Chocolate to Iced Caramel Lattes & Frozen Mochas, all made to order. Big Buck’s fresh fruit smoothies are lactose-free and made to order. Also offering lactose-free sorbets made from the best fruits available. Old time favorites are sure to please! Choose from a delicious collection of milkshakes, sundaes and banana splits.

 

Savor the moment with our Homemade Chocolate! Chocolates are made daily in each location. We offer a large selection from Dark to Milk to White. Milk Chocolate Oreos & Almond Toffee, Dark Chocolate Berries and Cherries Clusters & Hand-dipped Peppermint Patties with a Drizzle of White Chocolate, Extra-Dark Sea Salt Caramels & our famous homemade caramel chocolate pretzels oh & don’t forget the ever-popular caramel pecan turtle, just to name a few treats!

 

Belinda Pleva grew up serving ice cream out of her parent’s shop. She loved being part of what she calls “a happy business.” “I love it when people come into the shop and you hand them something, and it makes them smile,” Pleva says. “That moment when you hand an ice cream cone over to a little kid and their eyes just light up. That’s what I love about the ice cream business.”

 

In 1994, Pleva opened up her own ice cream and chocolate shop, Big Buck’s Ice Cream, in the brand-new Timbuk II Shopping Center in Corolla. Business was good, but something was missing.

 

“I was never satisfied with the ingredients in the ice creams and chocolates you could purchase back then. I wanted to serve my customers delicious flavors with ingredients they could actually pronounce,” Pleva says.

 

Pleva took a trip to Italy to study the gelaterias. She fell in love with the incredible flavors, and when she returned home to the Outer Banks, she began working tirelessly to perfect the flavors in her own ice cream.

 

Big Buck’s homemade ice cream combined the flavors of the Italian gelaterias and the richness of American ice cream. It quickly became a tourist favorite. After having the same unsatisfactory experience with the readymade chocolates she was selling, she also took a trip to Brussels to learn more about making handmade chocolates. Pleva brought the chocolate-making experience right back with her, and the result was the finest quality of chocolates on the Outer Banks.

 

After her huge success in the Corolla shop, Pleva was able to open up three more shops—one in Kitty Hawk, one in Manteo and one in Duck.

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The Cotton Gin

For those traveling to the Outer Banks, The Cotton Gin is a beloved landmark with its large windmill and picturesque gardens. The Cotton Gin has stood in the same location since 1929, starting as a working cotton gin and growing to a gift store with 4 locations. Visitors are treated to a unique shopping experience in our main store in Jarvisburg, as well as our beach stores in Corolla, Duck, and Nags Head. Explore room after room filled with décor for your home and coastal fashions for both men and women. Discover the brands you really want, like, Vera Bradley, Vineyard Vines, La Mer Luex, Simply Southern, Lindsay Phillips, Scout, Pandora, Kameleon, Brighton, Spartina, Tommy Bahama, Southern Tide and Salt Life and Old Guys Rule - all under one roof!

 

Don’t forget the gourmet market, or shop our beautiful linens for your bedroom and bath. We also feature coastal books and fine art, or just a whimsical fun gift to bring home to family and friends. Stop by soon and don’t forget to try our estate grown wines in our stores or visit our vineyard and winery, Sanctuary Vineyards, located adjacent to the original Cotton Gin in Jarvisburg.

 

Most know The Cotton Gin as a must-stop shop for fine gifts, beachwear, souvenirs and so much more, but this retailer has a long-standing history within the Outer Banks. A local landmark that holds almost a century of memories, The Cotton Gin started from humble beginnings and continues to adapt to the times and tourists. Tommy Wright’s family has been in the Outer Banks for nearly 200 years. His great-great grandfather, Jacob Francis Wright, shipwrecked in Duck back in the early 1800s. Calling these barrier islands his new home, Wright and his family acclimated to their new environment.

 

Adaptation is a common theme for the Wright family. Tommy and his wife Candace, who continue to steer The Cotton Gin, have seen not only their business change with the times, but the Outer Banks as a vacation destination as well. A farm market in Jarvisburg eventually transformed and flourished into several retail locations dotting the Outer Banks.

 

“As the area changed and tourism took off in the 1960s, the family saw people coming for vacations, so they began to grow vegetables and things developed from there,” says Tommy Wright. The Wright family expanded upon the farm market and began to remodel a working cotton gin, later transforming the gin into The Cotton Gin general store in the late 1960s. While the additions to the farm store drew visitors, it was their encounters with the Wright family that kept people coming back year after year, which is something that remains true today.

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