Getting There
We went back and forth on where to fly into to get to Cape Cod. Though Cape Cod does have an airport, only small puddle jumper plans fly into it. I thought it would be better to fly into Providence, RI instead of Boston, MA since there would most likely be more traffic in Boston and they are both about the same distance from Cape Cod. My dad decided he would rather fly into Boston anyways. We had booked this trip before the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup against the Boston Bruins. Let’s Go Blues! Everyone kept joking that we would need to avoid telling people we were from St. Louis unless we wanted to start a fight.
Getting Around Cape Cod & the Islands
As anticipated the traffic in Boston was terrible. We got onto the highway an immediately were stopped. We had to go through the tunnels which was an interesting experience. As we were heading into Cape Cod. I saw a sign on the side of that road that stated something about no driving in the emergency lane (shoulder). I thought, “Well duh. Do they have problems with people doing that?” Well, I was wrong. You are allowed to drive in the emergency lane on certain areas of the highway and at specific times of day. This just seemed crazy to us since it is illegal to do that in St. Louis. A ton of people used that lane which is just like any other shoulder – skinny and not well paved.
I had planned one day for Cape Cod, one for Nantucket and one for Martha’s Vineyard. It was not nearly enough time. I did not consider how long it would take to get around the islands. Cape Cod is not that big so I thought for sure we could get everywhere I wanted to go in one day. We travel to Florida all the time and end up in 3 or 4 different cities in a day easily. That was not the case for Cape Cod. It takes forever to get anywhere. There are basically two main highways which are only one lane on each side for a good portion of it. The week we went was not considered busy season and there were still a ton of people. I can’t even imagine what it is like during peak time.
During researching for our trip, I read that it was not easy to drive around Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard due to the amount of people and the lack of parking. It was recommended to ride a bike or take the public transportation. We decided to walk around Nantucket since most of the things were right at the ferry port. There was one lighthouse that I didn’t get to go to since it would have been a 9 mile hike one way. Overall, it was pretty easy to walk around the island, but had we rented a car, my dad would have been driving in circles trying to find parking while my mom and I shopped.
Martha’s Vineyard is not as walkable. There are several distinct towns with things we wanted to do in each town. I had carefully mapped out our day the night before by coordinating the ferry schedule with the bus schedule. It was not an easy task and I will admit that it was fairly stressful trying to time everything right. Some buses leave every 20 min, but others only leave every hour. We had to be very mindful of how much time we had at each stop. Also, there is no way biking around Martha’s Vineyard would have worked. The places we wanted to go were pretty far away to ride a bike and the buses do there best to stay on schedule which often means they are speeding down skinny windy roads alongside bikers.
Where to Stay
When looking for a place to stay in Cape Cod, I knew I wanted somewhere on the beach as well as a place that was in the center of Cape Cod to provide easier access to all of the different towns. We chose the Red Jacket Riviera Beach Resort at Yarmouth. It is a two story building right on the beach with an indoor and outdoor heated pool. There isn’t an elevator, so getting all of our luggage up the stairs was not particularly fun, but the view from our room was great. The vaulted ceilings made the room seem spacious and it looked like it was recently updated. We decided to go for a walk on the beach after we got all of our luggage into our room. There is a swing set right on the beach and of course I ran right to it. There were not many people on the beach as it was later in the day and not anywhere near warm enough to get in the ocean.
Where to Eat
CRU – (Nantucket) I had heard good reviews about CRU and it was on the water so we decided to try it. It was probably my least favorite meal of the trip. As I have mentioned before, I don’t like seafood and they really didn’t have many non-seafood options so I got a burger and it was pretty bad.
Portside Tavern – The restaurant was not very crowded when we got there, but they didn’t have a lot of staff working so it took forever for us to get seated and then our server didn’t come to our table for a long time. The owner seemed to notice this and was really nice and continued to check on us for the rest of the night. The burger I had was really good. The owner offered to make us a dessert that wasn’t on the menu yet. It was one of the best desserts we had the entire trip – it was a sugar cookie raspberry ice cream.
Bagels & Beyond – One morning we went here and I ordered a bagel with turkey and cheese, but they were out of turkey which seems to be a theme any restaurant we go to lately. They offered to make it with steak instead and it was great! The restaurant is really small and there is not a lot of room to eat there but most people get carry out. There is an antique store in same parking lot so of course we had to stop there before we headed out for the day.
Montano’s – After a long day of visiting lighthouses, we decided to stop at this Italian restaurant. There are two sides of the restaurant one is more pub like and the other a fancy restaurant. The bread and the gnocchi were excellent.
Fisherman’s View – We stopped here for lunch one day. It is a really nice restaurant with a good view. They have a good burger and lobster roll and we really enjoyed the Chinese BBQ wings.
Lobster Boat – The Lobster Boat is a family restaurant on the water with great food. The coconut shrimp with mango sauce is my favorite!
Many of the restaurants on Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard closed for the winter, so be sure to plan ahead if you want to visit specific ones.
