By Joy Crist, IslandFreePress.org
With 412,239 visitors recorded in August, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS) is on track to have another banner year for visitation in 2022.
Per statistics from the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, CHNS recorded a total of 2,043,904 visitors for the first eight months of the year, or from January 1 through August 31, 2022.
In recent history, this is the second-highest number of visitors at the National Seashore for the first half of the year, behind only 2021.
America’s first national seashore hosted a total of 3,206,056 visits in 2021, which was more than 20% higher than 2020, and more than 35% higher than the ten-year visitation average (2011-2020).
2021 was also the first year that the Cape Hatteras National Seashore hosted more than three million visitors.
Visitor totals for the past five years, per the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau’s statistics, are listed below.
Seashore visitation estimates are collected by counting southbound vehicles just north of the Marc Basnight Bridge and using a multiplier to estimate the total number of passengers heading south. Those estimates are added to the number of passengers going to Ocracoke Island from Cedar Island and Swan Quarter.