Vaughan to Cape Cod: the New England beach week by chauffeured car

The Cape, and the week

Cape Cod is the seventy-mile arm of sand that Massachusetts curls into the Atlantic, and the American summer's beach in the way Wasaga is Ontario's — but with the Cape Cod National Seashore's forty miles of protected Atlantic beach along the Outer Cape from Chatham to Provincetown, the dunes and the marshes, the bicycle trail on the old railway bed from Dennis to Wellfleet, the whale watches from Provincetown to Stellwagen Bank where the humpbacks feed an hour offshore, Provincetown itself — the fishing town at the tip that became the artists' and the gay community's summer capital, Commercial Street's galleries and the Pilgrim Monument's tower — Chatham's Main Street and the seals off its beach, Hyannis's harbour and the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum, the ferries to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and the clam shacks, lobster rolls and ice-cream stands of Route 6A's villages. It is the beach week Vaughan families add to Boston ninety minutes north, or drive twelve hours for on its own with a split at Albany or Saratoga; the Cape Cod Chamber's site has the Cape, and the border guide has the bridge.

The road, and the bridges

From Kleinburg the QEW, the Lewiston–Queenston Bridge, the Thruway's whole length to Albany, the Massachusetts Turnpike to I-495 south of Boston, and I-495 to the Sagamore Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal — twelve and a quarter hours by the estimate and twelve and three-quarters with the booth and stops, two days with a night at Albany or Saratoga — or the Boston week's Friday drive down Route 3 in ninety minutes. The two bridges over the canal — the Sagamore and the Bourne — are the Cape's only road in, and on a summer Saturday the backup is the Cape's famous hour; the chauffeur crosses before nine or after seven, and the Sprinter carries a family, the beach's gear and the bicycles for the trail.

The National Seashore

The Cape Cod National Seashore, Kennedy's 1961 park, is the Outer Cape's Atlantic side — Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach at Eastham, Marconi Beach at Wellfleet with its cliff, Head of the Meadow at Truro, Race Point and Herring Cove at Provincetown — with the lifeguards, the lots that fill by ten, the Salt Pond Visitor Center's films and the Nauset Marsh trail, the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp's boardwalk, and the Province Lands' dunes and the bicycle trail through them; the seals haul out on the sandbars and the great white sharks that follow them have put the Cape's lifeguards on alert since 2018, which the beaches' flags and the Sharktivity app explain. A family's beach day is Nauset Light at nine with the Sprinter in the lot and the umbrella from the bay, the lighthouse's tour, the Rail Trail's afternoon and Wellfleet's oysters.

Provincetown

Provincetown at the Cape's tip is the New England town that looks like none of the others — the Portuguese fishing families, the artists since 1899, the gay summer since the 1970s, Commercial Street's three miles of galleries, shops, restaurants and the parade of the town's own theatre — with the Pilgrim Monument's 252-foot tower (the Pilgrims landed here first, before Plymouth) and its museum, MacMillan Wharf's whale-watch boats, the dune shacks and the Province Lands' Race Point Beach, the Art House and the Provincetown Art Association's galleries, the Lobster Pot's lobster and Spiritus's pizza at midnight; a family's day is the whale watch at ten, Commercial Street's lunch, the monument's climb and Race Point's late afternoon, and the Provincetown site has the calendar. The Sprinter parks at the MacMillan Wharf lot and the town is walked.

The whales

The Dolphin Fleet's whale watches from MacMillan Wharf — three to four hours to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, where the humpbacks, finbacks and minkes feed from April to October with the naturalists narrating and the boat guaranteeing a sighting — are the Cape's best hour for a family and the reason the Provincetown day begins early; the Dolphin Fleet's site has the sailings, and the Hyannis Whale Watcher from Barnstable Harbor is the Mid-Cape alternative. The children wear the jackets; the boat is cold even in August.

The Rail Trail, Chatham and the villages

The Cape Cod Rail Trail runs twenty-five miles on the old railway bed from Dennis through Harwich, Brewster, Orleans and Eastham to Wellfleet — flat, paved, through the cranberry bogs, the kettle ponds and the salt marshes, with the bicycle rentals at Nickerson State Park and Orleans and the Sprinter collecting at the far end; Chatham at the elbow is the Cape's prettiest Main Street — the shops, the Chatham Squire, the Friday band concerts in Kate Gould Park, the fish pier where the seals wait for the boats, the lighthouse and its beach — and the villages of Route 6A on the bay side — Sandwich's glass museum and boardwalk, Barnstable, Yarmouth Port, Dennis's Scargo Tower, Brewster's general store — are the rainy day's drive. Nickerson State Park's ponds and Skaket Beach's low-tide flats at Orleans are the young children's swims, warm and shallow where the Atlantic side is cold.

Hyannis, the Kennedys and the ferries

Hyannis is the Cape's town — the harbour, Main Street, the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum's photographs of the family's summers at the compound across the harbour, the Kennedy Memorial on Ocean Street, the Hyannis Sound's a cappella on the green — and the port for the Steamship Authority's and Hy-Line's ferries to Nantucket (an hour on the fast ferry, two and a quarter on the slow) and to Martha's Vineyard from Woods Hole; a family's island day is the Nantucket fast ferry at eight, the town's cobbles and the whaling museum, a bicycle to 'Sconset or Surfside's beach, and the five o'clock boat home with the Sprinter at the Hyannis lot. The Steamship Authority's site has the schedules; vehicles do not go to the islands on a day trip and the family does not need one.

The week, in shape

Saturday's drive from Boston's hotel down Route 3 at 8 before the bridge's traffic, the Sagamore at 9:15, the Wellfleet or Eastham rental house by 10:30 with the travel desk's key, Nauset Light Beach by noon; Sunday the Rail Trail from Orleans and Skaket's low tide; Monday Provincetown — the whale watch at ten, Commercial Street, the monument, Race Point; Tuesday Chatham's Main Street and the seals, the band concert; Wednesday the Nantucket ferry day; Thursday Route 6A's villages and Sandwich's glass, or a second beach day; Friday the road home over the Sagamore at seven, the Pike, Albany at 11 for lunch, the Thruway, the Lewiston bridge at 6:30 with the 48-hour exemption, Kleinburg by 8:30 — or a Saratoga night. Six nights, the Sprinter on daily hire with the beach days released, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

Twelve hours each way across New York and Massachusetts as a driver, split over two days; the bridge; the Sagamore's Saturday backup, which the chauffeur times; the Cape's one road — Route 6 — in summer, with the family looking at the marshes; the beaches' lots that fill by ten, which the chauffeur solves by dropping; Provincetown's parking, which is the town's famous shortage; and the drive home sunburned. For a couple the flight to Boston and a rental car is the honest alternative and the site says so; for a family of five with a beach week, or two families in a rented house sharing a Sprinter, it is one fare and a parent on the whale watch rather than Route 6.

Seasons

July and August for the beach, the whales, the band concerts and the Cape at full tilt, with the houses booked by January and the Sagamore's backups; September for the warm sea, the empty beaches and the Cape's best month — Vaughan families with children in school miss it and the ones without book it; June for the lower prices before the season; October for the cranberry harvest and the villages' colour; the winter for Provincetown's quiet and the beaches in storm, when most of the Cape is closed.

Pairing it

Cape Cod pairs with Boston ninety minutes north as the fortnight's city week, with Newport ninety minutes west across the Bourne Bridge for the mansions' day, with Albany and Saratoga as the drive's splits, and with Portland, Maine for the family that does the New England coast from Maine to the Cape in one summer.

The Provincetown day, in order

From the Wellfleet house at 8:30 in the Sprinter: Route 6's last twenty minutes past Truro's dunes, the MacMillan Wharf lot at 9:15, the Dolphin Fleet's ten o'clock boat — the harbour, Long Point Light, an hour out to Stellwagen with the naturalist, the humpbacks' tails and a breach the children talk about for a year, the cold and the jackets, the wharf at 1:30 — the Lobster Pot's lunch, Commercial Street's galleries and the Provincetown Art Association at 3, the Pilgrim Monument's 116 steps and 60 ramps at 4 for the view down the Cape's arm, Race Point Beach at 5:30 for the late light and the seals offshore, Spiritus's pizza at 7 and the Sprinter home through the dunes at eight. A day that a family car does with a parking problem at every stop.

Sandwich, the canal and the rainy day

Sandwich at the Cape's neck is the oldest town on the Cape — the Sandwich Glass Museum with its glassblowing demonstrations, the Heritage Museums & Gardens' antique cars and carousel, Dexter Grist Mill on Shawme Pond, the boardwalk across the marsh to Town Neck Beach — and the Cape Cod Canal's bicycle path along the canal's bank with the ships passing under the bridges is the rainy day's other hour; a family that crosses the Sagamore at seven does Sandwich before the house's check-in, and the glass museum's site has the demonstrations' times.

Costs, plainly

The Cape week is a daily hire in the booking engine with the beach days released, inside the Boston fortnight or as a return with the splits' nights; the house, the whale watch, the ferries and the bicycles are the family's own, and the 48-hour exemption covers Provincetown's galleries. Against the fare are twelve hours each way over two days as a driver, the bridge, the Sagamore's backup, Route 6 in July and the beaches' and Provincetown's parking; a couple flies to Boston and rents, and a family of five with a beach week or two families in a rented house sharing a Sprinter book it for one fare and a parent on the whale watch rather than Route 6.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from your Vaughan address for the fortnight with Boston's week and the Cape's, or a return for the Cape alone with the split's nights; tell us the house or the inn, the whale watch's day, the ferry, the bicycles, the seats, the bags and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the road and the plan the evening before with the Sagamore's traffic on it.

Book the Cape Cod week