Last month, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS) had the second-highest level of June visitation ever, (with a total of 424,206 visitors), behind only June 2021. In addition, visitation through the first six months of 2022 was higher than any other year over the past ten years, except for January through June, 2021.
America’s first national seashore hosted 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.
The total number of visits per month for 2022, as of the end of June, is as follows:
| January | February | March | April | May | June | Total |
| 65,346 | 69,534 | 147,652 | 211,064 | 269,958 | 424,206 | 1,187,760 |
The total number of visits per month for the first six months of 2021 – a record-breaking year – is as follows:
| January | February | March | April | May | June | Total |
| 86,991 | 78,269 | 169,278 | 254,366 | 316,898 | 447,760 | 1,266,571 |
Visitor totals for the past five years, per the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau’s statistics, are also 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.
