Katherine Jackson
Your Walking Tour Guide
Katherine Jackson has lived in Virginia Beach since 1976 and is the author of Walking Virginia Beach, a guidebook that details 20 walks throughout Virginia Beach and surrounding cities. In the book, Katherine offers advice on restaurants, attractions, beaches, parks and other great places to walk around Virginia Beach.
Katherine is a senior lecturer in the English Department at Old Dominion University where has been teaching for almost 10 years. Previously, she worked in the Public Information Office for the City of Virginia Beach, in advertising for a travel agency and handled marketing for Kitty Hawk Kites & Sports in Nags Head, NC.
Katherine truly “lives the beach life” by taking full advantage of what the resort city offers every season of the year and by finding anyway possible to get outdoors. She loves living within walking distance of the boardwalk and enjoys biking, dining at outdoor cafes or simply taking friends and family to the multitude of free concerts, art shows and sporting events at the oceanfront.
Author Entries
Monday, April 23rd, 2012 by Katherine Jackson
 Ferry Plantation House by Casey Holtzinger Early American settles recognized the Lynnhaven River, one of Virginia Beach’s spectacular natural resources, as an important resource for food, water and transportation. As a result, the Bayside area of the city has a number of historic sites along the river, some dating back to the sixteen and seventeen hundreds. One recent afternoon, I mapped out a five-mile walk that allowed me to see three historic sites I had never seen before. I started the walk from the parking lot at the Pembroke Meadows Wayside, a peaceful park on the water’s edge at the end of Pembroke Boulevard. (For a map of the area, search for Pembroke Meadows Wayside, Virginia Beach on MapQuest). At the far end of the small park, a paved walking path traverses a marsh and lets out on Cheswick Lane, just down the street from the Ferry Plantation House. Built in 1830, this ten-room brick house faces the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven River, and in its heyday, provided lodging and food to travelers on the river.
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Tags: Ferry Plantation House, historic houses in Virginia Beach, Lynnhaven House, Old Donation Episcopal Church
Posted in History and Museums, Living the Life, With The Kids
Monday, April 16th, 2012 by Katherine Jackson
As much as I like beach walking, I also enjoy a walk in the woods. In previous posts, I recommended several of the wooded trails at First Landing State Park. Now I can recommend another great place to walk in the woods: the Stumpy Lake Natural Area. Located on Indian River Road in the southern part of Virginia Beach, Stumpy Lake Natural Area offers a mile and a half loop through the woods as well as a launch for kayaks and canoes. If it’s solitude you seek, this is the place.
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Tags: canoeing in Virginia Beach, First Landing State Park, kayaking in Virginia Beach, Stumpy Lake Natural Area, walking trails in Virginia Beach
Posted in Living the Life, The Great Outdoors
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012 by Katherine Jackson
 Spring came early to Virginia Beach this year, long before the official first day. And that means beach weather is not far behind! It also means that just about anywhere in Virginia Beach is a good place for a walk as Mother Nature puts her glorious powers on display. Everywhere I look, flowers are bursting into bloom, and pale green and yellow leaves are breaking out on trees. Neighborhood gardens, street medians, and city parks are exploding with color. The Bradford pear trees with their white blossoms are spectacular. Yellow forsythia bushes and purple irises and beds of lilac-colored phlox have begun their annual displays. Thousands of yellow and white daffodils are blooming, thanks in part to a grass-roots campaign a few years ago to plant an abundance of bulbs. Around the city, and especially at Red Wing Park, the cherry blossom trees are ethereal with their frilly pink flowers. And the dogwood trees have begun to push out petals. I even have a magenta azalea bush blooming in a sunny corner of my yard. Whenever I take a walk around my neighborhood at this time of year, I like to make an inventory of all the flowers I see, and that often spurs me to walk a few more blocks. Look, there! A tulip, opening its pink petals to the world. Pick any neighborhood or park. With temperatures in the seventies, there’s simply no better weather for walking. And in the midst of Virginia Beach’s springtime parade of flowers, there’s simply no more beautiful place.
Tags: Red Wing park, springtime in Virginia Beach
Posted in Living the Life
Friday, March 23rd, 2012 by Katherine Jackson
Springtime on the Boardwalk
Spring is here! The Virginia Beach Boardwalk is alive with activity, and it’s the perfect place for a walk. Earlier this week I saw crews busily painting and hammering, sweeping and landscaping, raising canopies and flags, and readying the Boardwalk for the upcoming season. When visiting a resort just before the high season begins, there’s always a feeling of electricity in the air, a sense of anticipation of what’s to come. Nowhere is this feeling more evident than on a beautiful day on the Boardwalk. Along with people working, I saw locals as well as a few visitors running, biking, rollerblading, flying kites and walking their dogs.
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Tags: Aviation monument, Boardwalk art, King Neptune, Virginia Beach boardwalk
Posted in Living the Life, The Beach Report
Monday, March 5th, 2012 by Katherine Jackson
During the week, the Virginia Beach Municipal Center is a bustling compound with thousands of cars and trucks whizzing in and out of its parking lots. However, on the weekends, when most of the offices and court buildings are closed, it’s a much more peaceful place. With its extensive network of sidewalks and expansive, well-tended lawns, it’s good place to walk. The red brick buildings in the Municipal Center run the gamut, from the Court building to the Fire Station to City Hall, but the landscaping is what makes a walk in the area so enjoyable.
Princess Anne Courthouse photo by Katherine Jackson
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Tags: Princess Anne Courthouse, Virginia Beach Sister City Association, Virginia Beach history, Virginia Beach Municipal Center, Virginia Beach volunteers, walking in Virginia Beach
Posted in History and Museums, Living the Life, The Great Outdoors
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 by Katherine Jackson
On a sunny Saturday  in February, I took a walk on Cape Henry Beach, which is adjacent to the Chesapeake Bay. It’s not a beach I often walk on, and it turned out to be a treat. The sun had coaxed the temperature into the upper fifties, the sky was a cloudless blue, and the air was so clear, I felt as if I could wave to my friends who live across the bay on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. I started my walk via the beach access at the end of West Great Neck Road, and I headed east toward Cape Henry, where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Initially, houses and condos line the beach, but farther along, I passed into First Landing State Park where only sand dunes abut the beach. The warm weather brought out lots of beachwalkers, photographers, dog walkers and a few bird watchers with binoculars. I saw one toddler in a pink sunhat who might have been taking her first beach walk. One man was digging for treasure with a metal detector, and a few people carried buckets for shells. Out on the water, fishing boats skimmed the surface and large cargo ships awaited their turn in port. Flocks of seabirds landed on the beach to look for lunch. All told, I covered 3.92 miles. I know this because I carried my iPod, which has a built-in pedometer and an FM radio. The local public radio station was playing lots of new music, and the reception was outstanding on this clear day. Cape Henry Beach is relatively flat, but it’s a good idea to check a tide chart when planning a walk. Parking is available on some residential streets in this area, including West Great Neck Road. You also can start and finish a walk on this beach via the parking lot at the First Landing State Park Bay Center, where you will pay a small parking fee. I recommend that you take this beach walk in the late afternoon while the sun sets over the bay and turns the sky a hundred shades of yellow, orange, purple and red.
Tags: Beach walks, Cape Henry Beach, First Landing State Park, free things to do in Virginia Beach, walking in Virginia Beach
Posted in Beaches, Living the Life, The Great Outdoors
Friday, February 3rd, 2012 by Katherine Jackson
 This week’s Beach Report is courtesy of ShoreLines blogger and Virginia Beach Walking Tour Guide Katherine Jackson, author of Walking Virginia Beach.
A Whale of a Walk
I can’t make any promises, but I’ve heard that beach walkers at the North End of Virginia Beach have been spotting humpback whales offshore. That’s right, whales off the coast of Virginia! According to a recent newspaper article, Winter Wildlife Boat Trips, sponsored by the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center, are reporting record numbers of whale sightings, especially in the waters off Ft. Story. You can see a portion of the ocean at Ft. Story from the beach at Eighty-ninth Street. Humpback whales are described as graceful acrobats that perform dazzling acts such as slapping their flippers and tail on the water; “spy hopping,” which means raising a third of their body above the water to look around like a periscope; and “breaching,” which means launching their entire body out of the water.
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Tags: humpback whales, walking in Virginia Beach, whale watching in Virginia Beach, Winter Wildlife Boat Trips
Posted in Living the Life, The Beach Report, The Great Outdoors
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