There are some nice places to eat there and some cute stores for shopping. It kind of depends on what you like to do. One of my favorite stores for essential oils is there—Down to Earth—they’ll actually mix a custom perfume for you for a really reasonable price. It’s really fun and then you have the perfect perfume. Plus, five years later when you want more, they’ll mix more for you and mail it off to you. It’s in the Cotton Exchange with a bunch of other random, interesting things.
The beach right in there is also quite lovely. I really like Topsail Island which is north of Wilmington.