Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket

Parent Cafe
21

<p>P-town is an interesting place. We went there when the kids were 10- or 12-ish, and they were largely oblivious to the spectacle going on around them. And it was quite a spectacle. People-watching can be very interesting there.</p>

<p>They didn’t understand why I found a store named “Spank the Monkey” to be so funny. We passed a bookstore, and DS wanted to go in; the owner saw us coming and literally ran to the door to head us off. Turned out the entire store was largely gay porn, and not really age-appropriate.</p>

<p>I don’t know if I would want to spend multiple days there, but for one day it was fun.</p>

<p>Outer Cape is nice, especially if you like a less-developed, more nature-y experience. Chatham is nice, although I find it a bit touristy. Harwich has its charm. I don’t care for the Hyannis-Yarmouth area that much, personally. </p>

<p>Bay-side can be down-right sleepy, lots of charming antique stores if you are into that kind of thing.</p>

<p>I haven’t been to the islands in over 20 years, so I won’t comment on them.</p>

<p>It’s definitely different from the Jersey shore experience (and I love the Jersey shore), I actually kind of miss not having a boardwalk and ride piers and what-not.</p>

22

<p>Check out Salem during October, especially right around Halloween, it’s definitely something not to miss.</p>

23

<p>Off season in Nantucket and MV are very quiet - by October many of the seasonal businesses are closed or are in the process of closing and the weather can be beautful or downright nasty making the ferry rides tough. The same with the Cape - not alot to do. If you were to visit the cape, I would recommend going and staying in Chatham…it have a lovely downtown area and beautful beaches for walking and exploring. All three of these places revolve around beach and boating activites with limited activites during the rest of the year.</p>

<p>Newport is hopping during all seasons. Newport has all types of highend and lower end shops to explore, great restaurants (both high end and low end), mansions to visit, fabulous seaside walks, and activities such as wine tastings, boat shows, harbor tours, murder mystery dinners in the mansions, etc. </p>

<p>As with Chatham, once you are there, many things are within walking distance.</p>

<p>PM me if you want more specific info…</p>

24

<p>I’ve been to all of 'em, and spent real time on the Vineyard and Cape Cod (it’s where I am now) .</p>

<p>There isn’t any one place that is Cape Cod. Cape Cod has a tremendous variety of locations, and a lot of variety within the same location. You would get completely different experiences in Hyannis, Provincetown, or Chatham.</p>

<p>The part I know best is the Lower Cape or Outer Cape (which, perversely, is the part that is placed higher on any map – the part farthest from the mainland, extending north from the “elbow” at Chatham to the tip at Provincetown. A huge portion of this part of the Cape is National Seashore, which means no or very limited development, and lots of beautiful vistas of dunes and sea, salt marshes, and a few freshwater ponds. And, for that reason, snootier and relatively expensive.</p>

<p>A few quick hits:</p>

<p>Chatham – old money, mansions, graciousness, stuffy
Orleans – strip malls, giant supermarket, the parts of civilization you can’t do without but wish you could
Eastham – National Seashore headquarters, beautiful beaches, no real town
Wellfleet – Perfect, varied. A small fishing village with stores and art galleries. Different landscapes – Wellfleet harbor (like bathwater, with oyster beds), Cape Cod Bay, the Atlantic, and 6-7 freshwater ponds, some large enough to be lakes and some only a few hundred feet across. Traditionally attracts lots of lawyers, psychiatrists, and academics. A surprising percentage of people’s beach reading is peer-reviewed.
Truro – Wellfleet without the harbor, ponds or the town. Sensational ocean beaches, beautiful, private houses.
Provincetown – A trip and a half. A traditional magnet for artists and gay vacationers (hardly mutually exclusive categories), it is one of the few places in the world where being heterosexual sometimes feels like being in a minority. Pick the right day – say, Drag Breakfast Day – and it can be quite a show. (Or, if you want an actual show, on most nights you can have your pick of ersatz Madonna, Cher, Marilyn, Grace Jones, Liza, etc., each with an adam’s apple, or a variety of lesbian stand-up.) There are actually several Provincetowns – the drag-queen mecca, the tourist trap (the West End is very touristy), the serious art locale (check out Rice-Polak Gallery), the functioning Portugese fishing town. Also, some of the best beaches, at Race Point, and sensational dunes.</p>

<p>I know Provincetown and Wellfleet are happening places well into the fall, with various festivals to entice visitors, and Orleans is substantially open year-round.</p>

<p>If you are doing a weekend visit, I would choose Provincetown (many beautiful small inns/B&Bs in town, don’t fail to stay there) or Chatham (some famous old resort), and visit the other. Riding bikes is pretty popular; there is a bike trail that essentially extends from Dennis to Wellfleet, and people ride around Provincetown and out to the beaches there all the time.</p>

<p>Martha’s Vineyard, is also a pretty varied place, although as it has gotten more popular it has also gotten more homogeneous. There are six towns (seven, if you count Chappaquiddick), all somewhat different: </p>

<p>Vineyard Haven – a substantial year-round town, dry, restrained. Where the ferry takes you.
Edgartown – where the money is, and a lot of the fun, upscale variety. Also great ocean beaches.
Oak Bluffs – the Inkwell, a traditional destination for African-American professionals and academics, also has the Black Dog, the Flying Horses carousel, a “campground” of Victorian gingerbread cottages, and a main drag that is what passes for honky-tonk on the Vineyard.
West Tisbury – hills, woods, agriculture, vineyards. The country. Old New England. A great little General Store.
Chilmark – a lot like West Tisbury, but also beaches and a substantial harbor and little town at Menemsha, with some lovely inns (including the Beach Plum Inn, which used to have one of the best restaurants on the Vineyard, and may still, given that that’s where Pres. and Mrs. O went out to dinner on their date night).
Gay Head – they supposedly call it something else now, but I bet no one actually does. Indians, zillionaires with isolated mansions, the best ocean beaches (some clothing-optional by custom), and multicolored clay cliffs,</p>

<p>Nantucket: Classy, whaling village with lots of old and new money. A lot longer ferry ride than the Vineyard, and not as varied geographically – it’s really just one big sand dune, but very beautiful, and the town itself is more substantial than anything on the Vineyard.</p>

<p>Biking or motorbiking around are great ways to see the Vineyard or Nantucket.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

25

<p>Thank you, JHS - that’s the level of precision I was looking for. Any particular places (B&B’s, inns, etc.) that you might recommend?</p>

26

<p>JHS’s descriptions are great. </p>

<p>I love Nantucket. It’s nickname is the “Grey Lady.” Much of Martha’s Vineyard is hurly-burly in comparison. There are lots of great B&Bs in Nantucket Town, one of which --The Admiral? I can’t recall precisely–was once owned by members of the Gilbreth family of Cheaper By the Dozen. H & I first went there for a weekend some time in the fall, and I loved it. You definitely do not need a car on Nantucket: in fact, I think it would be a detriment to the experience. Nantucket is subtle charm and small scale, and needs to be experience on foot or bike, in a more intimate way. I would not attempt to combine Nantucket with another place on a single weekend.</p>

<p>On the Cape, my favorite area is Wellfleet/Truro, for the reasons aptly described by JHS.</p>

27

<p>I want to put in a word for the Cliffside Beach Club in Nantucket. We once stayed there for a few days the week after Labor Day, and loved it. You can stroll out of your room right onto the beach, and if you don’t have a car, the town is a reasonable walk (and long enough that you can delude yourself that you are using up a lot of the calories from dinner). Great masseuse at their health club. It was already very quiet on Nantucket by then, and the evenings were quite cool; I imagine October will be pretty chilly. Another lovely full-service hotel on the island is the White Elephant, which is in town and walkable to everything, but has a minimal beach. If you are into bed-and-breakfasts, lots of those to choose from on Nantucket. The ferry trip can be avoided altogether by taking the puddle jumper out of Hyannis airport–very short flight, very low altitude with a nice view of the entire island as the plane comes in to land.</p>

<p>If you go to Provincetown, I highly recommend a dune tour–an entirely unique experience. I also suggest that if you’re straight, you just do a day/evening trip there and not stay overnight. I have been spending time in P-town for many, many years, and in the “old” days it was a very live-and-let-live place, where everyone was accepted, and my hubby and I were affectionately teased about being “breeders”. In more recent years a very affluent gay population has bought up a lot of property and dominates the town, and on our last visit we felt very out of place at our hotel and at restaurants and bars in the evening, as if we had crashed someone’s party. I understand that it’s appealing for gay vacationers to have a place that is very clearly “theirs”, but the transition has made a place that was once very open and accepting to all much more exclusive and closed-off for straight visitors other than day trippers.</p>

28

<p>Huge sand dunes in Truro. Worth a look. Where do you recommend to eat on the closer cape, say Sept-Oct? Fish, not fancy, not ordinary- a great dive bar (ala Goucester) would do.<br>
But, if you haven’t been to Plimoth- go on a busy weekend when the enactors are all there. I found it amazing and have been several times.</p>

29

<p>I actually wasn’t thinking about anytime in the fall - we are already going in to Boston for parents’ weekend, the weekend is spoken for, and we aren’t able to come back any time in the fall. Are any of these places worth it as a nice get-away-from-it-all in the winter or spring? Or is it not enjoyable unless the weather is warm and beaches are open? We’re not afraid of being outdoors in cooler weather, necessarily. I’m actually thinking long term over the next 4 years, not necessarily what I can do in the next month or so.</p>

30

<p>IMO, just not that much going on in winter. You could look into the Peabody Museum in Salem. Newport would work- as could Providence, which has amazing dining and the RISD Museum. The intrepid can go x-country skiing around Boston.</p>

31

<p>Eh, I can stay in the flat Midwest and go cross-country skiing for a lot cheaper! I have been to Newport and Providence – was really looking to do something new! Thanks all for your suggestions. I’m obviously too late in the game for this year, but maybe next.</p>

32

<p>The mansions in Newport which are fun to visit and interesting shut down for the season at the end of October and reopen I think in April although I am fairly certain that they are open and decorated for Christmas. You can easily go to the Berkshires in the Winter-it is an easy drive straight down the Mass Pike. The museums are open-The Clark in Williamstown, the Norman Rockwell in Stockbridge and MASS MOCA in North Adams as well as Williams College Museum of Art. There is also cross-country skiing and spas as a option, there are lots of inns and quaint b & b’s as well as chain hotels. Several of the theaters that are known for summer programming are also open in winter-check out Shakespeare & Co in Lenox. There are lots of nice restaurants and also outlet shopping in Lee.</p>

33

<p>Winter on the Cape is more freezing rain/slush than romantic snow. Also, many restaurants are closed, many shops/art galleries are closed or have shorter hours…in short, not much reason to go. Really, you can do better in the northeast in the winter, especially if you like the outdoors. How about Xcountry skiing in New Hampshire or Vermont (unfortunately dependent on weather, but at least a possibility).</p>

<p>Spring on the Cape - just fabulous in May/June - ocean beaches would not be swimmable (unless you’re a seal) but Nantucket Sound and Bay beaches are pretty good. Biking on the Cape has been getting immensely popular - it is very pleasant to bike just about anywhere before the crowds hit in late June. </p>

<p>Personally, my favorite time to be on the Cape is September or June, followed by August, July, May, October. I have been on the Cape in other months as well and would not recommend it, unless you’re looking for a windy, rainy, overcast, lonely beach spot.</p>

34

<p>Also, X country skiing in the Northeast is not the same as in the midwest - lots more hills (not much fun going up, but at least it’s a challenge), better views, trails thru wooded areas, towns and villages. And cool local museums.</p>

<p>How about Montreal/the Laurentians in the winter? about a 5 hour drive from Boston, great vibrant city, beautiful mtns w/ski areas and dependable snow.</p>

35

<p>The Cape is still pretty nice until about Thanksgiving, and the main town attractions stay open until the end of December. </p>

<p>JHS’s descriptions are right on the money, I’d say. Almost every part of the Cape has something unique to offer and depending on your interests, you’re bound to have a good time. For me, the only areas I don’t like are the developed ones: Mashpee, Orleans, etc, but there are still nice beaches there. If you only have a few days, I would visit the outer Cape first: Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet. This area has the iconic Cape Cod look (think Edward Hopper), and there is a lot of beach access because of the National Seashore. The dunes near P-Town are gorgeous and it’s well worth it to rent bikes to explore them. Truro also has beautiful large ponds for swimming, if you want something a little calmer than the ocean surf. And of course, P-Town has the tiny city vibe when you want a change. Whale watching from there is usually pretty great too.</p>

<p>As for places to stay, I can’t help you there, but you may want to stay away from the main drag of P-town (kind of noisy). If you’re into camping at all, this place is great:
<a href=“https://capecodcamping.com/[/url]”>https://capecodcamping.com/&lt;/a&gt;
You can walk to the beach from your campsite!</p>

36

<p>Ha, Pizzagirl, I thought you were from NJ. Winter along most of the New England coast, not just the cape, can be “more freezing rain/slush than romantic snow.” Which brings us to the favorite pastime: griping about the weather.</p>

37

<p>PGirl: I enjoy all three places and would tell you to visit them all. We have a home on Nantucket and love it. Spend most weekends there from June to October. Don’t close up until after Christmas Stroll, which is the first weekend in December. June and Sept are the best months to visit because it’s far less crowded and the weather is still great. If you do a CC search for posts on Bucket List of US cities you’ll find a post where I included a long list of island activities and places to see, which should give you a good sense of the island. I’d repost but I’m traveling and responding on an IPad. If you decide to go–I’d be happy to recommend places to stay and restaurants–send me a PM. My oldest D got married on island and I still have the materials we gave our guests on where to stay, what to see, etc.</p>

38

<p>Party at Bromfield’s!</p>

39

<p>Don’t forget to explore the beautiful trails and sights at the Audubon Society, just over the Eastham line in Wellfleet! It is a beautiful place to appreciate the natural beauty of the Cape!</p>

40

<p>In the fall, I would drive up to Vermont and New Hampshire for the foliage season. The colors are incredible and there are many beautiful inns you can stay at. You can go hiking, poke around many of the quaint towns or go to the interesting craft fairs. October is the perfect month to go there.</p>