>>166589I lived in Hampton for most of my life. It is terrible and there is nothing worth nothing in the area besides the Dismal Swamp. I also lived in Richmond while going to school, which actually has quite a lot of great outdoors spots nearby, mainly along the James River. I moved to the Roanoke/Blacksburg area because I hiked through here on the AT several times and fell in love with it. Like everyone else in the thread is saying, get in the car and get your ass out here. From VA beach, it will probably take you ~4 hours to get to the part of I-64 where you're in the mountains. You have a few options once you get to this area. You can go north on I-81 and make your way to Sperryville and check out Old Rag Mountain, or you could basically hit up any of the awesome AT sections by taking I-81. There's also the Skyline Drive, Blueridge Parkway, etc. Once you get to this side of the state, the world is your oyster.
Some notable locations to check out:
-McAfee's Knob (the parking lot where the trailhead is is literally a 10 minute walk from my house).
-Tinker's Cliffs
-Dragon's Tooth
-The Cascades
-Old Rag
-Mount Rogers
-The Priest
-Crabtree Falls
Etc etc.
If you really want to just get on a trail and aren't willing to make your way out west, there ARE some trails along the beach in VA beach. I think there was one that I went to that was sort of near a military base entrance (maybe the amphibious base)? Can't remember, it's been a while. That was kinda nice and had hills and all sorts of terrain. Had several branches of varying length/difficulty.
