6 Great Escapes to Make this Fall
Getaway destinations geared toward everyone from foodies to family adventurers.
Index
Nantucket, MA | Cape Cod, MA | Newport, RI | Washington D.C. | Montreal, Canada | Greenville, SC
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For the Family Adventurer
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
By Jamie Coelho
The pool at the luxurious Wequassett Resort and Golf Club. Courtesy of Wequassett Resort and Golf Club.
While planning a Cape Cod getaway, I needed a geography lesson. There’s the Upper Cape, Mid Cape, Lower Cape and Outer Cape. But which is which? The Upper Cape is closest to the armpit, including Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth and Mashpee. Mid Cape is composed of Barnstable and the towns of Dennis, Yarmouth and Hyannis. The Lower Cape is a little further down the arm to Orleans, Brewster, Chatham and Harwich and the Outer Cape is way out there in the fist and wrist of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet and Eastham. It’s kind of confusing, but at least they don’t get mixed up with a part of New York.
The resort overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. Courtesy of Wequassett Resort and Golf Club.
For our family getaway, we booked a Mid Cape stay and ventured toward the Outer Cape. All we had to do was drive right up to Wequassett Resort and Golf Club (wequassett.com) and never leave. This resort had absolutely everything we needed with several restaurants, including the fine dining institution Twenty-Eight Atlantic for chefs’ tasting experiences and the more casual patio at The Verandahs. The pool is worthy of an all-inclusive resort you might find in the Caribbean, lined with palm trees and overlooking the sea with a bar serving tropical drinks and its own ice cream-peddling bike (listen for the bell!). There are on-site tennis courts, a splash pad for kids, and on-site child care if parents want to have a date night. While the resort has its own rustic beach, you can also take the complimentary boat shuttle to a secluded white sand beach way out on the Outer Cape. This was our favorite part, because seals swam along as we made our way out to a beautiful stretch of sand where my kids hunted for horseshoe crabs on the bay side. We walked to the ocean side but didn’t dare dip our toes in the crashing surf (because you know what they say, where there are seals, there are … dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun).
Try a flight at Truro Vineyards. Photo by Jamie Coelho.
Oreo pancakes at Keltic Kitchen. Photo by Jamie Coelho.
While we would have been happy to remain on the property, we took a drive out to Truro Vineyards (trurovineyardsofcapecod.com) to scope out the winery on the Outer Cape. We sipped tastings and got ice cream from the on-site food truck and took home bottles of the rose and zinfandel. After a relaxing two nights at Wequassett, we stopped for an amazing breakfast of corned beef hash and poached eggs and Oreo pancakes at Keltic Kitchen (keltickitchen.com) in West Yarmouth, then made our way to Red Jacket Beach Resort (redjacketresorts.com) in South Yarmouth for a night. This part of the trip was mostly to fulfill my need for childhood nostalgia, since this is where I vacationed with my parents growing up.
A room at the Red Jacket Beach Resort overlooks the beach. Courtesy of Red Jacket Beach Resort.
Ice cream at Cape Cod Creamery. Photo by Jamie Coelho.
Red Jacket Beach Resort boasts a beautiful barrier beach and pool, but we mostly enjoyed exploring the bay beach area searching for sea critters. The room had a separate space for kids with bunk beds that my little ones loved. We also stopped for some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had at Cape Cod Creamery (capecodcreamery.com); try the Nauset Peach, Sandbar Swirl or Monomoy Mud Pie. Red Jacket Beach Resort also has an on-site restaurant, serving burgers, pizza and fish tacos for convenience, and a giant Adirondack chair and swing for picture-perfect family photo ops. That night we swung over to Pirate’s Cove (piratescove.net) for some mini golf adventures. This outing brought back memories of being a kid and conquering the waterfall at the top of the mountain. I got two holes-in-one and beat my whole family. So, if I leave the magazine to join the PGA Tour, now you’ll know why.
Pirate’s Cove. Photo by Jamie Coelho.
Family Fun
Looking for things to do with kids? Here are some seasonal (and year-round) ideas.
Cape Cod Inflatable Park and Wicked Waves Waterpark
This seasonal inflatable park boasts more than twenty inflatable slides, games and bounce houses, as well as a water park with waterslides and the Roaming River float attraction. Adults can also enjoy the swim-up Surf House Pool Bar. wickedwavescapecod.com
A breaching humpback whale. Via Getty Images/Philip Thurston.
Hyannis Whale Watcher Cruises
Head out on a four-hour open water adventure narrated by a naturalist to witness humpback and finback whales, and even dolphins, in their natural environments. Cape Cod ranks as one of the world’s top ten whale watching destinations. whales.net
Whydah Pirate Museum
An interactive science museum that spotlights the history of real pirates and treasures. The museum displays the largest collection of pirate artifacts ever recovered from a single shipwreck. discoverpirates.com
The Adventure Park at Heritage Museum and Gardens
Ages seven and older can explore the “aerial forest park,” which includes a self-guided adventure along treetop trails and sixty platforms within forty acres of woodlands. myadventurepark.com/location/sandwich-ma
Nuts & Bolts
Travel Time: An hour and forty minutes from Providence to Harwich.
How to Get There: I-195 East and US-6 East to MA-124 South/Pleasant Lake Avenue in Harwich.
Bucket List for Next Time: A visit to the Farm at Chatham Bars Inn for a four-course, farm-to-table dinner.
Worth a Detour: Ride the Cape Cod Rail Trail by bike and stop into the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy Chatham Shark Center in Chatham.
