Walkable beach towns on the East Coast?

My husband and I just got married last week and are ready to sit down and plan our honeymoon, but we're having issues deciding on a location. Neither of us has traveled much or far from home, and we're unfamiliar with many places to know if we'll be happy staying there.

Our ideal honeymoon location would be a beach town on the East Coast that's highly walkable/bikeable and dog-friendly. We're bringing our dog with us (debated on this a while, decided doggo needs a vacation too) and plan to rent an AirBnB for 5-7 nights. We about an hour away from Atlanta, GA and plan to drive, so we'd prefer the trip to take no longer than 14 hours. We'd prefer a beach town that's easily walkable, meaning we can walk from our lodging to the beach, restaurants and bars quite easily, or even bike between places. We also want the town to have some resemblance of a nightlife — we don't want to go clubbing, but we are night owls and would like to be able to get drinks after 10pm at a bar on a weeknight.

We've researched Virginia Beach, different OBX towns, Myrtle Beach, etc. but keep finding differing opinions online about experiences at each place. We're hoping someone who knows a little more might have some recommendations