Come off the Oregon Inlet bridge heading south and Hatteras Island narrows to a dune line with NC-12 on top of it, Pamlico Sound on your right and the Atlantic breaking on your left. For most of its length the island is barely wider than a walk from sound to surf. A motorhome suits that shape for a week, because you park once, plug in, and both shorelines are a few minutes on foot from the door.
The whole week stays on pavement, with the rig on NC-12 and the campground pads. The sand tracks onto the beach and the north end, from Nags Head and Roanoke Island up to the wild horses above Corolla, are a lighter trip, and the Outer Banks campervan page covers them. NC-12 is also the only road down the island, and storms can close it.
Oregon Inlet, Rodanthe and the road to Cape Hatteras
Oregon Inlet Campground is the first stop south of the bridge, a Park Service loop of paved pads at the base of the dunes that stays open all year. It's the easy first night after a late start from the mainland. Check whether your Oregon Inlet site has power before you plan on running the air there.
For the hookup part of the week, Camp Hatteras spreads across 50 acres from the ocean beach to the sound between Rodanthe and Waves. Its more than 400 sites are full hookup on concrete pads, so the air conditioner can run through a July afternoon and the tanks stay off the to-do list. The resort is at Milepost 40.5 on NC-12, 24 miles south of Nags Head and 35 miles north of Hatteras village, which keeps the lighthouse end and the ferry within a day out and back. Cape Hatteras KOA at Rodanthe and Frisco Woods on the sound side are the other private campgrounds people book on the island.
Book the campground before the rig, because the Park Service caps total vehicle length at 40 feet at every site in its four seashore campgrounds. Measure the motorhome and anything towed behind it against that number before you settle on a class.
Ocracoke with the motorhome on the Hatteras ferry
South of Rodanthe, NC-12 bends west at Cape Hatteras, past the black-and-white spiral of the lighthouse. Cape Point and Frisco are the seashore's dry campgrounds on that end of the island, and both close from late November to early April.
From Hatteras village the ferry carries the rig across the inlet to Ocracoke, and you spend the crossing on deck beside your own motorhome with the water opening up behind the stern. Deck space for a motorhome is tight, so reserve the crossing through the state ferry division instead of chancing the line.
Ocracoke Campground is flat and open to the wind, and its sites have no electricity, so the night runs on the rig's own tanks and battery. Plan one or two nights there, then ride the ferry back up to Hatteras. If it's just the two of you and Ocracoke's village and beach are the point, the campervan version of the trip covers the island in something smaller.