The best things to do on Nantucket
If you’re visiting in the summer, the day starts on the sand. Jetties Beach is ideal for a do-nothing day, great if you have kids, don’t feel like packing lunches, or prefer not to stray too far from Nantucket Town—you have your pick of food and amenities here. Open-air restaurant Sandbar offers oysters, cocktails, wings, sandwiches, and salads. With a flat walkway from the parking lot to the water, as well as changing stations, showers, volleyball nets, and a playground, Jetties is accessible and stress-free.
Surfside Beach, a little further out toward the south side of the island, is accessible via bike path. Vast and sandy with rougher surf, it attracts beachcombers scanning the shoreline in the mornings, kite flyers on the west end as the sun goes down, and surfcasters fishing in the evening.
The athletic beach-goer can’t miss Cisco Beach, the island’s surf destination. Take a lesson with ACK Surf School, Nantucket Island Surf School, or bring your own gear.
If you don’t like the beach, don’t worry. There’s more than enough to do offshore, especially—as the locals say—in “Town,” where visitors amble off the ferry onto cobblestone streets, weaving between steepled churches, old-growth elms, and gray-shingled buildings. Every corner is packed with restaurants, shops, hotels, and cultural offerings. The Whaling Museum tells the epic tale of the region’s dangerous 18th-century whaling industry, and its 46-foot skeleton of a sperm whale is quite the sight. Like shopping? Nantucket Looms weaves textiles at their own studio, including cashmere throws and mohair wraps. G.S. Hill Gallery is a trove of oil paintings and Nantucket’s signature lightship baskets—a local status symbol crafted by the island’s artisans. Stop at Murray’s, Nantucket’s century-old department store and the birthplace of American prep style. Murray’s is the seller of “Nantucket Reds,” their famous 1960s-designed canvas pants, intended to fade from salmon red to a dusty rose. They’re the quintessential East Coast summer uniform. Readers and writers should not miss Mitchell’s Book Corner, an independent bookstore with two stories and a special selection of books about Nantucket. Romance writer Elin Hilderbrand, whose novels take place on the island, does book signings at 11 a.m. every Wednesday during the summer.
