- [Narrator] Support comes from Blue Heron Realty Company, specializing in waterfront and water access properties and the coastal communities on Virginia's Eastern shore since 1993, learn more at blueheronva.com.

Support comes from Capitol Records, Nashville, part of the Universal Music Group, Nashville, bringing you new music from Jon Pardi, Carrie Underwood and Eric Church.

Capitol Records, Nashville available anywhere music is sold.

Support comes from Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters.

Kids need special care and grownups need to know that care is nearby.

We know how to treat kids.

CHKD.

Kids are more than patients, and we're more than a hospital.

Sponsored in part by the Roc Solid Foundation.

Roc Solid believes that play defeats cancer because when kids are playing, cancer is the last thing on their minds.

Roc Solid Foundation.

Building hope for kids fighting cancer through the power of play.

(upbeat music) - I'm a firm believer that most of us spend much of our lives doing things we don't want to do and talking to people we'd rather avoid.

A good day at the beach can fix some of that.

Since it's in the city name, we might as well start off at the beach.

Now, when we say the beach, there's actually miles and miles of oceanfront here, but when most people visit Virginia Beach, it's to what's called the Virginia Beach oceanfront, which loosely defined is the part where most of the hotels, restaurants and events are, and the signature boardwalk.

More on that in a moment.

But the key to everything here is the beach, which by the way, is huge, thanks to sand replenishment projects.

It's no surprise that this is where the action is.

In fact, the most photographed spot in the entire city is here.

The King Neptune statue - 34 feet tall at 31st street.

It should be impervious to hurricanes since it weighs 12 tons.

It's also the namesake for the Neptune festival at the end of September.

The highlight is the International Sand Sculpting Championship.

Like an Olympic sport with buckets and trowels, competitors come from all over the world.

I've been staring in awe at these creations for years, and it still seems impossible what they do.

- (Parker) It's amazing, you're so impressed with the front side of this, and then you walk around and there's a whole other side.

While you'll spend most of your time looking out at the water, It's what's right behind you that is another one of the big draws to the Virginia Beach oceanfront.

Three miles long and 28 feet wide, the boardwalk, which is actually concrete, is routinely voted one of the top 10 boardwalks in the country.

Running from second to 40th street, it is a huge recreational draw.

A big part of that is the bike path.

Hey, pro tip on the bike path, by the way.

If you're walking to the beach and need to cross the bike path, make sure to look both ways.

Many people don't, which causes a lot of slamming on the brakes from the bicyclists.

I've seen it countless times.

There's another beach option for you that has a very different vibe to it.

Sandbridge is the southern most public beach with parking and is about a 20 minute drive from the Virginia Beach oceanfront.

Because of the cottages with cute clever names, it's hard to not think of the Outer Banks when you're in Sandbridge, although it's a fraction of the size.

Lodging is mostly limited to those houses and there are only a handful of restaurant options.

But it's that lack of stuff that draws people here.

Little Island Park is the city-run beach area.

That's where you'll find parking, picnic shelters and bathrooms and showers.

Over the dune is a 400 foot fishing pier.

Beach access is on both sides of the pier.

And since it's city-run, there are lifeguards.

Now I mentioned that there are only a handful of restaurant options for you in Sandbridge, but one of the most coveted foods here is found at the Sandbridge Seaside Market.

Not long after the sun rises during the height of the summer season, dozens of vacationers and locals will line up to make sure they get some of these.

Getting first dibs on the donuts at the market is a big deal here.

Wake up too late and you might be shopping for cereal.

So much for sleeping in while on vacation.

(Dave) Very brief break in the action here at the donut counter.

Hmm, awesome way to start your day, at least on vacation.

Sandbridge may seem like a stopping point when it comes to beaches, but it's actually the beginning of a completely different experience.

(Parker) When you're Little Island Park in Sandbridge, you'll notice that the road continues to the south.

That will take you through Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

And then beyond that is what is considered to be the most primitive state park in Virginia, False Cape State Park.

Now there is a tram that'll take you down there.

That whole trip takes about three hours.

You can access it by the Atlantic Ocean or you can bike or hike down there.

Now, if you're gonna stay overnight, there's no vehicle access.

So that means you have to park your car at Little Island Park and then hike six to eight miles to your campsite and that's what we're gonna do.

On the other side of the road is Back Bay, a huge basin of freshwater that drains into North Carolina's Currituck Sound.

To access the camping at False Cape State Park, we're going to hike along the narrow strip of land, separating Back Bay from the ocean.

A mile and a half into our hike is the Back Bay Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center.

This is where most visitors start.

You can park here for a small entrance fee, although it is free from November through March.

But remember you can't park here overnight.

It's only for day trips, which for most means biking or hiking along the smooth, flat graded path that heads south.

We saw a lot of families with children, so it's nothing too strenuous.

No pets are allowed though.

The civilized path cuts through the wilds of the marsh.

You'll likely see plenty of birds with over 300 recorded species.

There are also plenty of snakes, cotton mouths, in fact.

We didn't see any, which was a little disappointing.

But in case you're worried about the snakes, keep in mind that because of the width and openness of the trail, they are easily spotted.

And by the number of people we saw, they weren't concerned.

(Dave) So here's a pro tip from someone who's never done this before.

We are here at the end of October.

It's unseasonably warm.

Temperatures are in the 70s.

A lot of people of course come here during the summer.

Hot, muggy and there is absolutely no shade.

So come prepared for that.

There actually is some much-welcomed shade for about the last mile as you enter False Cape State Park.

The March through the marsh turns to a low country, wooded walk and the woods then turn quickly to sand.

There are four primitive campgrounds at False Cape.

Two of those on the beach.

You'll find potable water at three of the sites with several pit toilets throughout and a helpful visitor center.

(Dave) Seven miles in, and this is what you get, camping on the beach pretty much have the beach to ourselves, but you think about going to the Virginia Beach oceanfront by the boardwalk, I mean, this is just absolutely spectacular.

Moonlit skies over the splash of the surf, uninterrupted by the lights of houses or the sounds of other people was our reward for that day's hike.

So was this sunrise that felt like it wasn't being shared by anyone else.

(Dave) We had an absolutely beautiful sunrise on this late October morning.

Only five or six people down here watching that sunrise.

One of the things you'll notice when you come to False Cape State Park, when you look on the other side of the dunes, no houses, no hotels.

(Dave) Alright, we just finished our seven mile hike back total of 14 miles.

Had a great stay last night here with my hiking buddy, Chase, but Chase, if we had to do it again, what would we do differently?

- (Chase) Definitely bring the bikes.

- (Dave) Load up the bikes.

While False Cape is Virginia's most primitive park, First Landing State Park is Virginia's most visited.

Just 10 minutes from where the boardwalk ends, the Park's name commemorates where English colonists first landed in 1607.

First Landing still features some of the cypress swamps and wildlife you'll find at False Cape, but it's a far more accessible park, especially since you can park here.

It really is a beautiful park.

There are 20 miles of trails and one and a half miles of beach.

And while you still feel like you are nestled in nature, the park offers cabins and yurts, campsites that have both water and electric, tent sites, a picnic area, and a camp store.

Even if you're here for just a few hours, it is definitely one of the highlights of the area.

A few more things on camping.

Just south of the main oceanfront area is where you'll find two other options.

There's the Virginia Beach KOA and the Holiday Trav-L-Park.

Both of which offer the amenities you might want for your family if you're in town for a while.

Okay, we have roughed it for long enough.

It is time to visit one of the most celebrated restaurants at the beach, Zoes.

It's billed as the place to go when you must impress your guests.

The main face for Zoes is sommelier, Mark Sauter.

Like most sommeliers, Mark is a walking collection of encyclopedias on wine.

I mean, it really is amazing.

- (Mark) Niles Venga was the very first person in American history score a hundred points on any wine ever being made.

- He is why wine can be such a big and enjoyable part of the experience here.

(Dave) Most people like to just drink wine.

You find it endlessly fascinating.

I mean, you love to study wine.

What is it about wine that intrigues you so much?

'Cause you have a real passion for it.

- (Mark) I do love wine.

I've loved wine since I was 13 years old, lived out in California, in wine country for a while.

and I just find it's a wonderful binder.

It kind of brings people together.

- [Dave] Okay.

- [Mark] And there's just so much to learn.

It's just never ending so you can never learn at all.

That's why I keep studying and studying.

There is no end journey to wine, just keeps on going, going.

- [Dave] If you wanna have a wine tasting experience at Zoes, there's plenty of that.

And if you want a food and wine pairing, you are in for a treat.

- [Joy] That's so good.

- [Dave] We certainly were.

Chef Paul started us off with raw oysters from the ocean side of the Eastern Shore.

You may know them as old salts.

As the name implies these oysters taste like an ocean bath, but Chef Paul puts a dollop of cream and butter on top.

- [Joy] Looks amazing.

- [Dave] What I love about this is that, typically, and these are from the Eastern Shore often referred to as the old salts.

- [Paul] Yep.

- [Dave] Okay and then you've kind of balanced out that salty, that salinity base layer with that creamy kind of sweetness on top that is delicious.

- [Joy] That's fantastic.

- [Dave] Followed by a beat salad that looked like it should be on the cover of Food and Wine Magazine, this meal was about to get serious.

The star of the show is this.

A center cut Miyazaki A5 Wagyu beef.

They get it shipped from Japan.

This cut is so special that it even comes with a certificate of authenticity that includes the cattle's nose print.

For such a prize cut of beef, the cook on it is simple.

Pan seared with a little oil and butter, cooked to rare, medium rare.

You don't even need a knife to cut it.

It's served with Robeson-style potatoes, butter glazed beans and a vegetable stock, something you can definitely try at home, and a cold, Maine lobster tail, all topped with a beef demi-glace they take four days to build.

If you're thinking wow, right now, how do you think we felt?

[Dave] I know that the chef said that the potatoes were buttery.

The steak is like butter, absolutely mouth watering.

That is glorious, it's fantastic, wow.

This meal was special.

- [Joy] 10 out of 10.

- [Dave] And this is the Zoes experience.

Since you could find yourself in a swimsuit the next day, you might wanna work off some of that dinner, maybe by climbing a tree.

The Adventure Park is a ropes course, climbing and tree to tree zip lining adrenaline rush.

You could spend hours here.

There are 17 trails in the trees that contain 258 different challenges and 30 zip lines.

If you've never done this before, which I had not, that's okay.

- [Announcer] First, tighten your waist strap high on your waist.

Tightening both straps equally.

- [Dave] There's a full safety overview on how to navigate the course, which includes you practicing with a staff member before actually starting to climb and zip.

The safety feature is their clip system, which secures you to each element.

There's a redundancy built into that system for added safety.

- [Instructor] You guys doing good?

- [Dave] Plus there are trained staff throughout the course if you have any questions.

While this can be a lot of fun for experienced climbers, there were also plenty of kids who acted like they had been doing this for years and others who couldn't wait to be back.

- [Guest] S o this is my second time.

- [Guest] This is my third time, so I'm gonna pro now.

- [Guest] But it won't be the last time.

- [Dave] Up here, it's easy to forget you're just minutes from the beach.

Flying from tree to tree will do that.

Usually when you go to the beach, you spend your time looking out at the water.

We're about to spend a lot of time on the water.

First in a kayak with dolphins, lots of them.

Leaving out of First Landing State Park, you can literally be within yards from bottlenose dolphins in just minutes.

[Dave]So a lot of people think you need to go to like Atlantis to be able to hang out with the dolphins.

That is not the case, you can do it right here in Virginia Beach.

I'm here with Matt Redford.

He is the owner of Chesapean Tours, did I say that right?

- Chesapean Outdoors.

- Chesapean Outdoors.

Sorry, I was close.

So what are we gonna see today?

- [Matt] Well, hopefully gonna see a lot of dolphins.

- [Dave] Okay.

- [Matt] This is an incredible area for seeing bottle nosed dolphins along the Atlantic coast.

- [Dave] What makes this area any different than other areas in the Mid-Atlantic for seeing bottle nose dolphins?

- [Matt] The beautiful Chesapeake Bay right here, where the bay enters into the Atlantic Ocean.

- Right.

- [Matt] Right here that convergence is a tremendous amount of food for the dolphins and the females bring the calves in here for sanctuary at night.

It's just an amazing, perfect location for the dolphins to collect in large numbers.

- [Dave] And how long is our tour today?

- [Matt] Two hours.

- [Dave] Great, perfect, can't wait.

A staff member on a jet ski will help spot the dolphins.

And then you with the guide paddle out to them, often, that's not more than a mile.

And when you get to them, they're right there.

You don't need binoculars, zoom lenses.

You are paddling among these beautiful animals.

(gentle orchestral music) This really was awesome.

They have several different tours, but I did the sunset tour, which combines the excitement of seeing the dolphins and the beauty of the setting sun over the Chesapeake Bay.

But maybe you had something a little bigger in mind.

After the sunburned tourists of summer head home, and the waters turn cold, a new kind of visitor arrives.

Just a few miles off the mostly deserted beach in January and February, you have the chance to see whales as they head southward.

[Dave] I have lived here almost my entire life and have never done this before, whale watching.

Here with Alexis Raben with Rudee Tours.

[Dave] So Alexis, from somebody who has never done this, what can we expect today?

- [Alexis] Well, you're gonna be in for a really great treat.

We're gonna be headed out into the Atlantic Ocean to look for big whales, particularly humpback whales.

- [Dave] Okay.

- [Alexis] It's been a stellar season already.

We are on record to have one of the best seasons that we've had in almost a decade.

- [Dave] You do this a lot.

So what is one of the coolest things you have ever seen out here?

- [Alexis] That is very difficult.

I've been doing this for going on 13 years and every single trip is different.

I get excited when I see the guests checked off that item off of their list.

- [Dave] Right - [Alexis] This year we've had some really memorable encounters.

We were mugged by a pair of humpback whales on one of our first trips.

Mugging is when the whales come over and they circle the boat.

And basically they take control of the encounter because we cannot move until they leave.

They were spy hopping around, they were swimming underneath.

We were doing a little bit of people watching while we were whale watching.

- [Dave] Wow, I've never said this before, but we're hoping to get mugged today.

Because this is a bucket list item for many, the boat is lined with eager newbies and the devoted, all with cameras at the ready.

And just in case whale sightings aren't intoxicating enough for you, there's a full bar on board.

It was a nice touch.

Only about 20 minutes into the trip.

The first whales started surfacing.

(gentle orchestral music) This is one of those things that you just kick yourself over not doing earlier in life, especially if it's in your own backyard, like mine, [Dave] Four humpback whales, two breaches of these whales.

I mean, it's just amazing to see these animals out here in their natural environment, of course.

It was a great day out on the water.

Great way to see Virginia Beach, of course, My thanks to Rudee Tours.

(gentle orchestral music) After a day like that, you might be ready to celebrate with a cocktail, dinner and a good night's sleep on high count sheets.

That's where this place comes in.

The historic Cavalier Hotel built in 1927, It's been a turn style of the rich, famous and powerful, 10 presidents, Betty Davis, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Muhammad Ali, Sinatra.

After closing for a short time, family feuds, the threat of actually being torn down and then millions of dollars in renovation, The Cavalier is now a pearl by the sand.

(music) I had mentioned a cocktail earlier.

Fortunately, there's a full blown distillery inside the hotel.

So much for the lounge lizard hotel bar you might be used to.

Tarnished Truth Distilling company is a dream come true for Virginia Beach native and co-owner Andrew Yancey, but like most dreams, it wasn't easy.

[Dave] So I'd read that Tarnished Truth is the first distillery ever housed in a hotel?

Is that true?

- [Andrew]} It is, yeah.

- [Dave] It would seem to have some unique challenges or maybe opportunities, right?

- [Andrew] Yeah, absolutely.

It was the federal government, you have to get a license for, to have a distillery with the federal government.

- [Dave] Okay.

- And when we submitted our application, their first reaction was absolutely not.

There was some antiquated laws in the federal code that said, couldn't, yeah.

- [Dave] You're kidding.

- It said you couldn't have a distillery in a residence and they considered a hotel of residence.

- Right.

- [Dave] But they never really defined what a residence is.

So we had to go and challenge the federal code and have attorneys fight with the federal government.

And after 18 months they finally said, okay, we agree.

It's not a residence.

And so we were the first people to ever really challenge that.

- [Dave] Time to enjoy all that perseverance and billable hours by the lawyers.

Justin Boyle is the head distiller at Tarnish Truth.

- [Justin] The hardest part in all bourbon is making a consistent products.

- [Dave] Hmm, okay.

- [Justin] And you wanna make a consistently good product.

And so, the way that you do that is you are very strict and regimented in collecting the data and documenting absolutely everything that you do.

So that at the end of the day, you know that your bourbon is going to taste good because you're not gonna get a chance to do anything with it for about three years.

So you don't know if you made a mistake until three years later, so it behooves you to take the precautions early on.

- [Dave] No pressure there.

- [Justin] Right.

- [Dave] So fair to say, this is part art, part science.

And I'm assuming part love of what you're doing.

- [Dave] That is a very good way of putting it, yes.

- [Dave] It all comes together in their wheat, high rye, a single barrel aged for 11 years and they're dangerously tasty bourbon cream.

Just think Baileys made with bourbon.

Taking a tour of the distillery is one of the top rated items on Trip Advisor in Virginia Beach.

Then settle in glass in hand at the adjoining and aptly named Hunt Room.

If you're looking for a place where the locals like to hang, this is it.

With the pre-dinner cocktails, still swimming on our pallets, it was time for dinner upstairs at Becca.

When your meal starts off with a plate full of smoke, that's bathing mesquite grilled, Virginia oysters topped with handpicked blue crab, you know it's gonna be a really good night.

They even have a mesquite charred Caesar salad, which I didn't know was a thing.

The beet salad was even a big highlight and it just kept getting better, Crab cakes perched atop summer corn and succotash, potatoes, all draped in a roasted red pepper coulis and citrus butter.

The turf part of the meal was the Eisenhower filet, a thing of beauty to see and eat.

Gouda and mustard, whole grain, potato croquette, asparagus, gremolata and heirloom tomato relish.

And just when you thought it was time to be plopped on a luggage cart and hauled off to your room, dessert arrived.

And yes, in case you're wondering it was as good as this looks.

I think we're gonna need a bigger luggage cart.

It's always nice to end a trip with a great meal before the drive home, that and knowing there's a lot more to do and eat for the next visit to Virginia Beach.

I'm Dave Parker for Virginia Found.

- [Narrator] Support comes from Blue Heron Realty Company, specializing in waterfront and water access properties and the coastal communities on Virginia's Eastern Shore since 1993.

Learn more at Blueheronva.com.

Support comes from Capitol Records, Nashville, part of the Universal Music Group, Nashville, bringing you new music from Jon Pardi, Carrie Underwood and Eric Church.

Capitol Records, Nashville available anywhere music is sold.

Support comes from Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters.

Kids need special care and grownups need to know that care is nearby.

We know how to treat kids.

CHKD.

Kids are more than patients, and we're more than a hospital.

Sponsored in part by the Roc Solid Foundation.

Roc Solid believes that play defeats cancer because when kids are playing, cancer is the last thing on their minds.

Roc Solid Foundation, building hope for kids finding cancer through the power of play.