A little over 100 wild horses live on the eleven miles of 4x4 beach between the end of the pavement in Corolla and the Virginia line. Nobody can tell you where they’ll be on a given day, because the herd moves constantly. What you can do is look in the right places. This is how people who drive themselves up there find them.
Where to look
The whole fenced sanctuary is fair game, about 7,500 acres from the south fence at the ramp to the north fence at the Virginia line. Three kinds of places turn up horses most often:
- The open beach and the dune line.
- The sand roads behind the dunes in Swan Beach, North Swan Beach and Carova, where the horses graze the lots and rest in the shade between houses.
- The marsh edge on the sound side, where they graze and find fresh water.
They travel in small family groups, one stallion with a few mares and their foals, so where there is one horse there are usually more nearby.
Drive it like a search
Start at the ramp where the pavement ends, air down, and head north on the beach. It is best near low tide, when the sand is wide and firm. Drive slowly and scan the dune line on your left. Every few miles, turn in at a beach access and loop through the neighborhoods behind the dunes, then come back out to the beach.
Fresh droppings and hoofprints on a sand road mean a group passed recently. A few cars pulled over with cameras up usually means the same thing. A pair of binoculars pays for itself. The speed limit on the beach is 35 mph, and 15 mph within 300 feet of any person; searching goes slower than that anyway.
When you find them
- Stay at least 50 feet away. It is Currituck County law, it applies even when a horse walks toward you, and it covers drones.
- Pull well off the driving lane and watch from in or beside the vehicle. A parked Jeep makes a good blind.
- Never feed them. Apples and carrots can give a wild horse fatal colic.
- If they cross in front of you, stop and let them. No horn.
- Bring a zoom. A phone with optical zoom or a long lens fills the frame from 50 feet.
To report a hurt horse or someone harassing one, call the Currituck County Sheriff’s Office at (252) 453-3633, or 911 in an emergency.
If they don’t show
Wild means no guarantee. The herd keeps moving, so a second pass up the beach can find what the first one missed.
If you want to see Banker horses up close, the Corolla Wild Horse Fund runs Mustang Mornings at the Betsy Dowdy Equine Center on the mainland, where its rescued horses live.
Before you leave the pavement
- Air down to about 20 psi at the ramp. Every Beach4x4 rental comes with a deflator and a compressor, so you can air back up when you leave the sand.
- Fill the tank first. There are no gas stations in the 4x4 area.
- Check the Carova tide chart; the beach is best near low tide.
- Parking on the sand takes a Currituck County permit from the second Saturday of May through the last Saturday of September. Beach4x4 rentals come with the permits on the vehicle.
- For the lay of the land, the Corolla wild horse map shows the ramp, the sanctuary fences and the communities. For the herd’s history, read our wild horses guide.
You don’t need to own a 4x4 to go looking. Rent one from us, with pickup at our Kill Devil Hills lot about 27 miles south of Corolla and the beach permits already on the vehicle. Two days is the shortest rental you can book online, which gives you more than one try at finding them.