Travel to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island

Enhance your stay on Cape Cod with a trip to the islands. Ferry service to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard from the mainland is quick, easy and enjoyable.

Jessica Laniewski

Nantucket

Located 30 miles off the Southern coast of Cape Cod, Nantucket was the whaling capital of the world during the 1800s, a bustling international port whose wealth and sophistication belied its size. As well it should, the small island—it measures 3 1/2-by-14 miles at its widest points—is proud of its history, and takes great measures to ensure that its historical appeal is preserved. The island’s only town, Nantucket Town, is a National Landmark Historic District, containing 800-plus pre-1840 structures. Trendy boutiques, high-caliber galleries,

and inventive gourmet restaurants line the cobbled (The road was paved in 1837 with cobblestones, brought here from Gloucester, where they had been stockpiled after serving as ballast to stabilize ships' cargoes. The cobblestones enabled heavy, oil laden carts to move up from the wharves without sinking in the mud.) main thoroughfare exuding an air of sophistication. Aside from downtown, essentially Nantucket is all beach, a boomerang-shape sand spit consisting of detritus left by a glacier that receded millennia ago. The island encompasses more than 100 miles of sandy shoreline, all of it open, as a matter of local pride, to absolutely everyone. From town, where the ferries disembark, quiet residential roads fan out to points around the island; Siasconset (Sconset) lies eight miles to the east, Surfside three miles to the south, and Madaket six miles west of town.

Martha’s Vineyard

The 9-by-23-mile-long island of Martha’s Vineyard is both larger and at seven-miles out to sea, closer to the mainland than Nantucket, the island also has a more laid back vibe. Famous for its streets of brightly painted Victorian gingerbread cottages in the town of Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard comprises six different communities, each with its own charm.

Located at the northern tip is Vineyard Haven, a picturesque, turn-of-the-century community with upscale boutiques and no alcohol. Edgartown, which occupies the southeastern corner, is a former wealthy whaling port heavily salted with the old, stately homes of ships’ captains and now a center of yachting. To the west, Chilmark and West Tisbury are largely residential and farming communities; those who really like to get away—and who appreciate great sunsets—head for the famous color-streaked cliffs of Aquinnah, on the island's western edge. With 125-miles of shoreline the Vineyard has beaches of all kinds: rocky, wild ones along the Chilmark and Aquinnah coasts; the big waves of South Beach in Edgartown; the usually gentle, family-friendly beaches along Beach Road that borders Nantucket Sound between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, the small but pristine Vineyard Sound shoreline along Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury.