Driving into Wilmington you pass through the now expected miles of commercial strip that surround most old towns in the US; at least in cases like Wilmington (or Beaufort, or any other you can name) they didn’t gut the original town to build these strips, but it likely isn’t because it wasn’t considered at the time.
We took a look around town at the end of the afternoon, doing a drive-by on the neighborhoods and downtown streets and a foot prowl in the downtown district. Like many an old town in the US, the downtown is a mix of old brick or wood structures, and some public buildings: here an enormous, lovely Post Office and a Federal District Courthouse. More amazing was the residential district on the southern edge of town, on the rise of hill naturally. There is block after block of splendid wood, brick and stone houses, brick-paved streets and nearly every one is in good condition.
While there are some closed store-fronts the town has a feel of, if not booming prosperity, at least of thriving: lots of young people, interesting shops, very good restaurants and well-maintained civic infrastructure. The town has a lot of charming and interesting small details, and a wander by foot lets you see them. Given the combination of poor weather and constraint of schedule, we stuck to some of the large details, but it’s a lovely little town. Nice discovery.
Wilmington is a major Coast Guard station 
and also has one of the WWII battleships open for visits, the North Carolina: 
Wikipedia has a pretty good outline describing the area. It mentions the beach areas of Wrightsville, Carolina and Kure Beach, but having driven down there we can say that they are just as horrendously overbuilt and crowded as every other beach town we’ve seen in North Carolina. We wouldn’t live here for the beach access…
We took the afternoon of a cold, grey windy day to look at the North Carolina aquarium at Cape Fear; note the paragraph: “It is the fifth-oldest surviving English place name in the U.S.” – who knew there was such a classification? Wonderful facility, with an albino alligator 
on prominent display, a great touch-tank for kids, or adults: you too can pick up a horseshoe crab. Also one of the better “don’t run” signs: 
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