Most days on Topsail, the correct number of day trips is zero. You paid for a beach week. Getting in the car to go look at something else is how people come home more tired than they left.
But a seven night stay is long enough that somebody is going to want a change of scenery, and a couple of these are genuinely good. Here are the six drives worth the gas, ordered by how far you have to go, with what they actually cost and when to skip them.
The honest framing
Everything on this list is within about an hour of Surf City. None of it requires a whole day. The right pattern is to leave the house by 9am, do the thing, eat lunch there, and be back at the house by mid-afternoon so you still get the best part of a beach day, which is the last two hours of light.
One more thing about timing. US 17 is the artery for most of this, and on a summer Saturday it is full of people checking in and out of rental houses up and down the coast. A trip that takes 45 minutes on a Tuesday can take 65 on a Saturday. Go midweek, or go early.
1. Hampstead and Poplar Grove Plantation (20 to 25 minutes)
Hampstead sits about 13 miles south on US 17, a little under halfway between Surf City and Wilmington. It is not a destination so much as the place you go when you need a real grocery run, a hardware store, or a sit-down lunch that is not on the island.
The actual attraction is a few minutes further south: Poplar Grove Plantation, at 10200 US Highway 17 in the Scotts Hill area. It is a 19th century peanut plantation site with the manor house, outbuildings, and grounds, and the guided tour does not sand down the history of the people who were enslaved there. Guided tour admission runs about $16 for adults, $14 for seniors and military, $12 for students 11 to 17, and $8 for kids 5 to 10.
Two practical notes. First, this is not a drop-in. House tours and the market close for the winter, December through March (the grounds do reopen on select nights for a holiday lights festival from late November to just before Christmas), and guided house tours currently run only on Wednesday mornings at 11am with the group capped at 18 people, so buy tickets ahead at poplargrove.org or at the market booth rather than showing up and hoping. Second, the Open Air Market runs Wednesday mornings, roughly 9am to 1pm, from late May through late August (May 20 to August 26 in 2026), and if you are going in season, that is the morning to do it. Produce, baked goods, local vendors, and it pairs neatly with a grocery stop on the way home.
Skip it if your group has no patience for a house tour. The grounds alone are pleasant, but they are not a two hour visit.
2. Burgaw (about 40 minutes)
This is the trip nobody thinks of, and it is the one that surprises people.
Burgaw is the Pender County seat, about 40 minutes inland from Surf City, and its downtown is a genuinely intact historic district rather than a restored theme version of one. The center of it is the Pender County Courthouse, a three story Georgian Revival building from 1936 sitting on a square under a canopy of old oaks. Around it you get antique and gift shops, a few restaurants, Burgaw Brewing, and a restored train depot.
There is a self-guided walking tour, and you can pick up the brochure at the Municipal Building at 109 North Walker Street. The whole loop takes about an hour on foot.
Time it around the North Carolina Blueberry Festival, held the third Saturday in June (June 20 in 2026). It pulls tens of thousands of people into a town of a few thousand. If you want the festival, go early and expect to park a walk away. If you do not want the festival, pick a different weekend entirely.
Skip it if the group will not get out of the car for anything that is not sand. Burgaw is farm country, and that is the point of going.
3. Sneads Ferry and Swansboro (about 45 minutes)
Head north instead of south and the character changes. Sneads Ferry, about 20 minutes up NC 210, is a working fishing community, and it is where a good bit of the shrimp on local menus actually comes off the boat.
Keep going and you reach Swansboro, about 45 minutes from Surf City, sitting where the White Oak River meets the Intracoastal Waterway. This is the best walkable downtown within an hour of Topsail. Front Street runs along the water with antique shops, galleries, and boutiques in old buildings, and there is a boardwalk and fishing dock at Bicentennial Park looking out over the river. Yana’s is the local breakfast institution, and the Ice House Waterfront Restaurant is the one people drive over for, with a deck on the White Oak.
The downtown is compact enough that you park once and walk the rest. There is also a self-guided historic tour covering about 30 sites if that is your thing.
Skip it if you already worked through Surf City’s shops and did not enjoy it. Swansboro is a nicer version of the same errand.
4. Bear Island by ferry (about 50 minutes, plus the boat)
This is the best trip on the list, and the only one worth burning most of a day on.
Hammocks Beach State Park sits just past Swansboro, roughly 50 minutes from Surf City. From the visitor center a passenger ferry runs about 2.5 miles out to Bear Island, an undeveloped barrier island with no houses, no roads, and nothing to buy. Just dunes, maritime forest, and miles of empty beach. The crossing takes roughly 15 minutes and the ride out through the marsh is half the appeal.
The details that matter:
- The ferry runs April through late October, and the days shrink as the season winds down. Through the summer peak it runs daily, every 30 minutes Thursday through Sunday and hourly Monday through Wednesday, with the last boat off the island at 6pm. From early September it drops to Wednesday through Sunday, hourly, first boat 9:30am and last boat off the island at 5pm. Through October it is Friday through Sunday only. It shuts down for the winter in late October.
- Round trip fares are about $10 for ages 13 to 61, $5 for ages 3 to 12, $5 for seniors 62 and over, and free for under 3.
- Tickets are first come, first served. No reservations. On a July Saturday, be in line early or you will wait.
- Wind and lightning stop the boats. Check the schedule at ncparks.gov or call the park the morning you plan to go, because the posted season is not a promise about today.
Pack like you are going somewhere with nothing, because you are. Water, food, sunscreen, shade, and a bag to carry your trash back out. There are restrooms and a bathhouse on the island near the landing, but no store.
Skip it if anyone in the group cannot manage a walk across soft sand in the heat, or if the forecast has afternoon storms in it.
5. Downtown Wilmington (about 40 minutes)
Wilmington is about 31 miles south, and this is the fair-weather version of the trip. If it is raining, our rainy-day guide covers the indoor list: the Battleship North Carolina, the Cape Fear Museum, the Cameron Art Museum, and the aquarium experience at the mall.
On a good day, do this instead.
The Riverwalk. A 1.75 mile boardwalk along the Cape Fear River through downtown. Free, open all the time, with historical markers, public art, benches, and a straight-across look at the Battleship moored on the far bank. Park once downtown and walk. This is the single best free thing to do in Wilmington.
The historic district. Streets of 200 year old architecture running back from the river, with the Bellamy Mansion, the Burgwin-Wright House, and the Latimer House if anyone wants to go inside.
Airlie Gardens. Formal gardens, live oaks, and lakes on the way out toward Wrightsville, open daily 9am to 5pm with last admission at 4:30pm. General admission runs about $10, with New Hanover County residents and military around $5 and children 4 to 12 around $3. Best in spring for the azaleas, and pleasant most of the rest of the year.
Skip it if your group is small children only. Downtown Wilmington is a walking trip, and it is hot in July.
6. Wrightsville Beach (about 45 minutes)
Be clear-eyed about this one. You would be driving about 45 minutes from a house with private beach access to a beach where you pay for parking.
Paid parking runs March 1 through October 31. For the 2026 season, premium spaces are about $6 an hour or $30 a day, and non-premium spaces about $5 an hour or $25 a day. The town cut the daily rates by $5 this season and added a real-time availability system, which helps, but it is still real money for a family.
So go for a reason other than the sand. Wrightsville has a genuinely good restaurant scene, better surf shops and rentals than the island, and the north-end paddling around the marsh is excellent. If you are already headed to Wilmington, the River to Sea Bikeway runs about 11 miles from the Riverwalk out to Wrightsville, which is a far better use of the day than driving to a parking meter.
Skip it if the only draw is the beach. The access at the end of our street is closer and free.
Which one should you actually pick
If you are here a week and want exactly one trip: Bear Island, on a weekday, with a good forecast.
If you have kids under six: Poplar Grove on a summer Wednesday morning for the market, then home.
If you hit a rainy stretch: Wilmington, and use the rainy-day guide instead of this one.
If you want the trip nobody else in your group has heard of: Burgaw.
Doing it from Sound to Sea
The house sits on a quiet dead-end street toward the southern end of Surf City, which puts you on the right side of the bridge for everything heading south on US 17 and a straight run up NC 210 for everything heading north. There is parking on site for five cars, so a group can split up and take two vehicles without anyone playing musical driveway.
The practical advantage of a house over a hotel on a day like this is the return. You come back sandy and sunburned, rinse off at the outdoor shower before anything comes inside, and cook at the house instead of hunting for a table at 7pm on a Saturday. Our where to eat guide covers the markets worth stopping at on the way home, and the best time to visit guide explains why the weeks with the least US 17 traffic are also the cheapest ones to book.
Why book direct
Booking Sound to Sea directly gets you the best rate with no third-party service fees, and it gets you a host who will answer a question. Text us before your trip and we will tell you whether the Bear Island ferry has been running, what US 17 has looked like that week, and which of these is worth doing with your particular group. A listing page cannot do that.