Cape Cod Travel Guide: Insider Tips [Beat the Crowds]

Whether you know it as one of the Puritans’ first settled lands in the New World, from the iconic lighthouses, as the summer home of presidents and celebrities, or as the site of the gay capital of New England, Cape Cod has for 2 centuries been an aspirational beachy escape for vacationers from Maine to New York City.

It’s the kind of destination you’d make a point of name-dropping casually into conversations about summer plans both low-brow and high, and then spend all summer gorging yourself on incredibly fresh seafood after spending all day relaxing at a perfect beach to the soothing roar of the ocean.

But to experience it, you should first learn about the place that went from being known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic to simply “the Cape,” where Bostonians from modest to posh have their beach cottages.

This is Cape Cod and a brief look at what you should know about it.

Location

Cape Cod is a long, thin, peninsula that juts out from southern Massachusetts and turns abruptly north at about a 90-degree angle before curling in on itself at the tip. On a map, it looks somewhat like a flexing human arm ending in a fist, and that’s what locals visualize when they orient themselves. The inside of the flexed arm is Cape Cod Bay. On the outside is the Atlantic Ocean. If you followed the line of the forearm and knuckles, you’d land vaguely around Boston.

Below Cape Cod’s elbow is the exclusive island of Nantucket (the one of limericks fame), which is sometimes known as Billionaires’ Isle and kind of looks like Maui’s hook from “Moana.” And below the armpit is Martha’s Vineyard, another island known for its affluence and posh summer homes (the Obamas have a Martha’s Vineyard summer home in Edgartown), if not quite to the extent of its eastern island neighbor.

People split the Cape into 4 sections: the Upper Cape, which encompasses the shoulder of the Cape and starts at the bridges to the mainland and extends to Barnstable; the Mid Cape, which is the biceps of the Cape and goes from Barnstable to around Dennis; the Lower Cape, which is the roughly the elbow and includes Harwich and Brewster to Orleans, and the Outer Cape, which forms the forearm and fist of the Cape, from Eastham (pronounced “EAST-ham,” not “EAST-um”) and goes up to Provincetown, or P-town.

The spine of the Cape is U.S. Route 6, which runs through the middle of the peninsula all the way up to P-town — it’s also the only highway from Eastham up, and it can get very crowded in the summer. Massachusetts Route 6A, also known as Old King’s Highway, hugs the north shore of Cape Cod. Massachusetts Route 28, the southern shore’s highway, is carried over from the mainland by the Bourne Bridge and merges into U.S. Route 6 in Orleans.

The Bourne Bridge, the Sagamore Bridge, and the Cape Canal Railroad Bridge cross the Cape Cod Canal and connect the Cape to mainland Massachusetts, but ferries regularly shuttle back and forth between Boston and Provincetown, the festive town that forms the fist at the tip of the Cape.

Cape Cod Gateway Airport (HYA) in Hyannis is the main commercial airport in Cape Cod. It’s serviced by the local airline Cape Air, which flies to Boston (BOS), Martha’s Vineyard (MVY), and Provincetown (PVC). Under the Nantucket Airlines logo, Cape Air also flies from Hyannis to Nantucket (ACK). JetBlue has daily seasonal flights to and from New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) on an Embraer E190, and American Airlines flies to New York City’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA) and Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) on an Embraer E175.

Besides the seasonal Cape Air route to Hyannis, Provincetown Municipal Airport (PVC) has Cape Air flights to Boston, though the company recently made this a seasonal route. It resumes on May 16, 2025.

By car from New York or Connecticut, the shortest route is to take I-95 to I-195 to Massachusetts Route 25. From the west, take I-495 to Route 25. From Boston, take I-93 south to Massachusetts Route 3 south. From points north outside of Boston, take I-95 south.

You can also take a ferry from Boston to Provincetown. The fast ferry leaves from Boston’s Seaport District several times a day in season, takes 1 hour and 40 minutes, and costs $87 per adult each way.

Places To Stay

Folks who regularly summer in Cape Cod typically either have a vacation house there, have an arrangement with a homeowner, or use services like Airbnb or Vrbo. It’s not as chock-a-block with points hotels as you’d expect from a popular leisure destination, but that’s also part of the charm of the place — the properties generally tend to have been in the same families for generations, and major hotel chains haven’t swooped in and taken all the best spots.

That said, there are some hotels that should be worth a second look from an award traveler.

Chatham Bars Inn Resort & Spa (Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts)

A posh property right on the water, this Chatham resort is probably about as luxe as it gets on the Cape, and rooms can cost from $580 up to $1,500 for a single night during the summer. Thankfully, it’s also bookable with Amex Membership Rewards points as a Fine Hotels + Resorts property. Using AmexTravel.com, we found a room in mid-June at the Chatham Bars for $981 or 98,175 points.

Red Jacket Beach Resort & Spa (Amex’s The Hotel Collection)

With sweeping views of Nantucket Sound, this hotel in South Yarmouth has a pool and private beach, a family restaurant, and a bar, and it’s close to the Whydah Pirate Museum. We found rooms in early July for $422 or 63,270 Membership Rewards points via AmexTravel.com.

Hot Tip:

Note that if you book independent hotels through The Hotel Collection or Fine Hotels + Resorts with Membership Rewards points, you’ll receive a maximum of 1 cent per point in value, which is significantly less than you may otherwise receive if you were to book a hotel by transferring points to a program such as Hilton Honors or Marriott Bonvoy.

Four Points by Sheraton Eastham Cape Cod (Marriott Bonvoy)

This Marriott property is impossible to miss on the east side of Route 6 as you’re making your way up the Cape toward anywhere from Wellfleet to P-town. It’s in a great location near Marconi Beach and various kettle ponds but also right on that main artery leading back down to the rest of the Cape. We found July rates as low as $249 or 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points a night.

Holiday Inn Cape Cod-Hyannis (IHG One Rewards)

In the Cape Cod town that’s arguably become most famous as the summer home of the Kennedy clan, the Holiday Inn in Hyannis has a pool and is close to the JFK Hyannis Museum and the ferries to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. We found nights in June going for $264 or 46,000 IHG One Rewards points.

DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Cape Cod – Hyannis (Hilton Honors)

Hilton loyalists who are also Kennedy aficionados may want to consider this property, also in Hyannis, which has an outdoor pool and free freshly baked cookies when you check in. We found rooms in July for as low as $302 or 60,000 Hilton Honors points.

Hot Tip:

Confused about what rewards program best suits you for a trip to Cape Cod? We have comprehensive guides to Amex Membership Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, IHG One Rewards, and Hilton Honors.

Ocean Beaches

On paper, the main draw of the Cape is its gorgeous beaches, among the best in the Northeast. The jewel in the crown is Cape Cod National Seashore, a federally protected beach (signed into legal existence by President John F. Kennedy, no less) that stretches 40 miles from Chatham to Provincetown.

The main entrance to Marconi Beach, the beach for 99% of beach-goers, is the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham, which also houses the National Park Service office, informational exhibits, a small movie theater showing regular documentaries about Cape Cod’s geology, an outdoor auditorium, the head of a couple of trails, an oyster pond (you need a license) and a gift shop. This is where you need to go if you want to get a fire permit for a beach fire. (Don’t even try to sneak a fire without a permit — the rangers will see and catch you.)

During the high season, you have to park your vehicle in one of the parking lots just past the visitor center and wait for one of the regularly scheduled trolleys to take you the rest of the way to the wooden stairs down to Marconi Beach. Parking isn’t free at these lots during the summer — the entrance fee starts at $15.

While you’re visiting the Cape Cod National Seashore, you can also visit the most iconic lighthouse in Cape Cod (and possibly the entire East Coast): Nauset Light, which is right by the Nauset Light Beach part of the national seashore. You don’t have to worry about looking for parking among the beach crowd: There’s parking by the historic Three Sisters lighthouses just a little bit inland, and you can follow the tree-shaded path from the Three Sisters to Nauset Light.

Hot Tip:

Is it driving you crazy trying to remember where you’ve seen Nauset Light before? Click here for the answer.

Marconi usually has lifeguards on duty in the summer during the day, but their hours can vary. The big wooden board where the parking lot meets the stairs should have up-to-date information posted about lifeguard hours, weather and water advisories, and recent shark sightings (more on that below).

Though Marconi’s the usual beach for first-timers to Cape Cod, longtimers and locals tend to prefer to avoid the massive crowds that Marconi attracts in the summer and stick to their local town beaches. Each town has its own rules about its beaches, including hours, lifeguards, fire permits, and health advisories, but in most cases, the most difficult part about going to town beaches is the parking permits.

Most Cape towns have distinct resident permits and visitor permits, and most sell visitor permits that range from day passes to week passes to longer at what are now hefty prices (e.g., Wellfleet visitor passes in summer 2024 ranged from $70 for a 3-day pass to $200 for a 2-week pass, compared to $35 for a yearlong resident sticker). Each town has different rules about where the sticker has to be placed (always on your car). For example, those Wellfleet stickers always have to go on the bottom rear corner of the driver’s side rear side window, while Harwich beach stickers have to go on the right rear bumper.

Some town beaches let you buy day passes at the parking lot as you enter, assuming there are still spaces, while other beaches only admit vehicles with resident stickers. Again, you have to check the beach rules for each town.

What’s universal to all the town beaches is that you have to assume there won’t be enough parking spaces at the beaches most of the summer. Real estate is hard to come by on this peninsula, and it’s not like there’s anywhere to put new lots along the eroding coastline. Always consider looking for parking in your planning for a beach day on Cape Cod.

Sharks

Now, about those sharks: Cape Cod isn’t just popular with humans — it’s also the biggest summertime destination for great white sharks, who return here every year like clockwork in numbers that have long fascinated scientists.

They’ve been especially noticeable in the past few decades as the marine ecosystem has rebounded with conservation efforts. This is one of the environmental world’s great success stories — but it’s also a little scary when your kids are out there playing in the surf. There have been shark attacks on Cape Cod in recent years, including a fatal one.

To avoid becoming a national news headline, you should follow a few commonsense rules before going to the seashore in Cape Cod.

• First, always check the board at the beach, which will post signs if there have been shark sightings that you should be concerned about.
• Listen to the lifeguards and keep an ear out for shouted warnings from them.
• If you see the shark flag flying at the beach — a purple flag with that unmistakable shark silhouette — don’t go for a dip.
• It’s increasingly common to see groups of seals on the beach at Cape Cod. These are white sharks’ favorite meals, and you don’t want to become an accidental garnish, so don’t go in the water anywhere near seals (the same goes for large schools of fish).
• Avoid swimming in cloudy or murky water, and don’t go into the water alone, whether it’s to swim, kayak, or for any other water-based activity.
• Finally, sharks tend to be most active at dawn and dusk — avoid going into the water at these times of day.

Kettle Ponds

Another secret that locals and longtimers like to keep to themselves is the kettle ponds, inland freshwater ponds formed during the region’s last deglaciation period between 23,000 and 18,000 years ago. Every Cape Cod town has its own kettle ponds, and they can range in size from relatively tiny to quite large — Long Pond, for example, which is shared between Brewster and Harwich, encompasses over 700 acres.

Though the kettle ponds can vary a lot, the best ones have crystal clear waters, clean, sandy beaches, and are secluded, often nestled in the Cape’s lush pine forests. You’ll notice there are far fewer crowds at kettle ponds than at the ocean beaches, for the most part — and no sharks!

Some have small parking lots, while others have none, and the towns’ rules about beach parking stickers also apply to these beaches.

Though everyone has their own favorite kettle pond, popular ones include Great Pond in Wellfleet, Sheep Pond in Brewster, Seymour Pond (right on the Cape Cod Rail Trail in Brewster), Schoolhouse Pond in Chatham (which has a lifeguard in season and is good for young children), and Ryder Pond in Truro (which is a favorite among kids who love to catch and release frogs).

Food

Here’s hoping you like seafood, because the Cape is, understandably, all about the bounty of the sea. Arguably the signature food of Cape Cod is the lobster roll, made from lobster meat mixed with mayonnaise (or butter) and served on a New England-style hot dog roll (sliced on the top rather than the side). They’re typically served with fries and coleslaw.

Everyone has their own favorite lobster roll place, but if you’re not sure, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find a place that serves them almost anywhere on major roads on the way to whichever beach you’re going to for the day. A local favorite is Sesuit Harbor Cafe in Dennis, where you can eat right on the sand overlooking the harbor.

If you (or the kids) don’t dig seafood, there’s plenty of child-friendly comfort food everywhere, too, many explicitly geared toward families and near the popular beaches. The Red Barn Pizza in Eastham, for example, is less a pizza place than an activity-filled complex that also has ice cream, a putt-putt course, a fudge shop, and arcade games. The original Pizza Shark in Harwich, meanwhile, only offers takeout and none of those activities, but it’s right on the Cape Cod Rail Trail, and you can take your pie and eat it on the nearby picnic tables as a break from cycling. It also has good ice cream, which you order from the outside window to the kitchen.

Speaking of which, ice cream is a seemingly universal obsession on the Cape, and for this, too, everyone swears by their own family’s favorite place. That said, Sundae School, which has locations in Harwich Port and Dennisport, has consistently topped reader polls in local newspapers for years. (Get a hot fudge sundae with fresh fruit and homemade whipped cream from there at least once in your life.)

Other Activities

The Cape Cod Rail Trail is the earth-friendly, exercise-encouraging, nature-loving second life of the Cape Cod Central Railroad, a 25.5-mile bike-and-pedestrian path stretching from Yarmouth to Wellfleet (not including the 6 miles of the Old Colony Rail Trail spur to Chatham). It weaves through several towns and past places of historical and natural significance, including kettle pond beaches and pizza and ice cream joints, provides good tree shade, and turns much of the Cape into an easily bikeable recreational vacation wonderland. It’s easily one of Cape Cod’s most popular features.

If you don’t bring your own bikes, you can find bike rental stores in many towns on the Cape, most of which deliver and do pickup.

Putt-putt and miniature golf might run a distant third to beaches and the bike path when it comes to popular family-friendly activities on the Cape, and you can’t help but notice these places, especially as you make your way up Route 6 past Orleans. A local favorite is the heavily buccaneer-themed Pirate’s Cove in South Yarmouth.

On rainy nights or when it’s one of those nights when everyone needs to power down outside the rental house, Wellfleet Cinemas has a classic drive-in ($15 for adults) that has double features in the summer and a thriving snack bar with candy, soda pop, hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and french fries. It also has regular indoor movie theaters in a separate building on Route 6, a small putt-putt golf course, and a daytime flea market that convenes 2 or 3 times a week, depending on the season (admission varies from $1 to $3 per car).

Other places to visit on Cape Cod include the Whydah Pirate Museum ($18 admission) in West Yarmouth, dedicated to the actual pirate treasure discovered from a shipwreck off what’s now Marconi Beach (Cape Cod has the highest concentration of shipwrecks on the continent, with over 3,000 documented wrecks); the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum ($20.94 admission) in P-town, commemorating the site of the Pilgrims’ first landing in the New World (in other words, it wasn’t Plymouth Rock); and whale-watching tours ($75 tickets for most adults), which take advantage of the Cape’s proximity to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary — you’re pretty much guaranteed to have a close-up whale sighting, but maybe take a Dramamine or don’t go at all if you get seasick easily.

Most years in early June, almost all of Provincetown becomes a bustling hub of all sorts of activities with the annual Provincetown Pride LGBTQ+ weekend, especially along Commercial Street, the town’s main shopping, dining, and bar district that hugs the shore.

Final Thoughts

So, after all those suggestions we’ve thrown at you, we’re going to give you the most important piece of advice of all when it comes to having a good time on Cape Cod: Ignore all the advice everyone gives you and let yourself find your own way of having a fun vacation on the Cape, because there are no wrong answers.