Spent a week down in Topsail Beach, NC.  It's a good ways down the NC coast, about 40 miles north of Wilmington.  It was our first time there.  We've only had beach vacations at the Jersey shore so we decided to try something different.  We rented a 3 bedroom house across the street from the beach.  It was a very nice house within easy walk of the public beach access.  The beach was nice too, and the water very, very warm.  We brought our dog with us and she had a blast running around the sand and digging in it.  Topsail is a VERY dog-friendly place so there were lots of other dogs there too.  Topsail is a nice place to go if you're looking for a week of relaxing on the beach, but if you're looking for "things to do" it might be a letdown.  There is kayaking and jetskiing, but it's not a very "commercial" place so the pickings are slim.  That said, I liked it very much.  I don't think we'll go back next year...not because we didn't like it but rather to go to some place different.

The trip down almost KILLED me.  We past a bunch of civil war-related sites...Fredericksburg, Jackson Shrine, North Anna River, Cold Harbor, Beaver Dam Creek, Petersburg but on the way down I didn't stop at any of them.  On the way back I WAS able to stop and see a portion of the Petersburg battlefield, but I had a bunch of impatient kids and wife with me so it wasn't very enjoyable.  I'll have to go back there again on my own one day.