Nantucket

Top things to do in Nantucket

1. 01

   Nantucket Whaling Museum - a sperm whale skeleton in a candle factory

   history culture arts 👍 Popular

   The island's essential hour, set in an 1847 spermaceti candle works on Broad Street where the original beam press still stands. A full sperm whale skeleton hangs above the main hall, the collection runs from harpoons and scrimshaw to the story of the Essex that fed Moby-Dick, and the great Fresnel lens that once turned in Sankaty Head Light sits inside. The roof deck looks out over the harbour and the whole grey-shingled town.

2. 02

   Main Street and the Three Bricks - what the whale money built

   history shopping 👍 Popular

   Cobbles run uphill from the wharves past a colonnaded bank and an elm-shaded run of frontage to three identical brick mansions a whaling merchant raised for his three sons in the 1830s, with a columned Greek Revival house facing them across the street. The whole island is a protected historic district, which is why the shopfronts are discreet, the shingles weather grey and nothing on Nantucket has a traffic light.

3. 03

   'Sconset Bluff Walk - the footpath through the back gardens

   scenic ⭐ Highly recommended

   A narrow public right of way along the top of the bluff at Siasconset, threading behind a string of tiny cottages smothered in rambler roses with the Atlantic dropping away on the other side. It is somebody's garden as much as a path, so the etiquette is strict and locally enforced: single file, no bikes, no dogs, no wandering off it. Pick it up near the top of Front Street and loop back through the village lanes.

4. 04

   Great Point Lighthouse - the over-sand run to the northern tip

   nature wildlife adventure ⭐ Highly recommended

   Past Wauwinet the tarmac gives out and a long barrier spit curls north to a lone stone tower standing by itself in the dunes. Getting there means a four-wheel drive with the tyres let down and a permit from the gatehouse, or a seat on one of the naturalist-led over-sand trips. Seals haul out along the shore, terns nest on the beach in early summer, and the rip off the point is the best surfcasting on the island.

5. 05

   Sankaty Head Lighthouse - the red-banded tower on the eroding bluff

   scenic history

   The island's most photographed light stands above 'Sconset with a broad red band around its white tower, throwing the beam that warned ships off Nantucket Shoals. Erosion brought the bluff edge so close to its base that in 2007 the entire tower was jacked up and moved several hundred feet inland; the original lens it carried is now on show in the whaling museum in town.

6. 06

   Brant Point Lighthouse - the penny you throw from the ferry

   scenic history

   A stubby white light on the sand spit at the harbour mouth, the shortest in New England and standing where a light has burned since 1746, second only to Boston in the American colonies. Every arriving boat passes within a stone's throw of it, which is where the island habit of tossing a penny overboard for a safe return comes from. Fifteen minutes on foot from Main Street, and the best place anywhere to watch the boats come in.

7. 07

   The bike paths to 'Sconset, Madaket and Surfside

   adventure scenic 👍 Popular

   Flat paved paths radiate from the edge of town to all three ends of the island, which is why so many visitors never touch a car. The Milestone Road run out to 'Sconset crosses open moor in about an hour, the Polpis path loops back past the cranberry bog and the lifesaving museum, and Surfside and Madaket are both easy afternoons. Rental shops cluster by the wharves and the shuttle buses take bikes on the front.

8. 08

   Madaket Beach - the island's sunset

   scenic

   The far west end, where the paved path runs out and the island gathers to watch the sun drop behind Madaket Harbor and Smith's Point. The surf is heavy and the shorebreak steep, so it is better for the view and a drink than for a long swim, and the one restaurant at the end of the road has the timing of the whole thing down to a ritual.

9. 09

   Cisco and Nobadeer - the Atlantic surf side

   adventure scenic

   The south shore faces open ocean, so this is where the island's waves, its surf school and its teenagers all are. Cisco holds the most consistent break and has boards and lessons going on the sand all summer, while Nobadeer out by the airport is the loud one. Rip currents and a punishing shorebreak are both real here, so use the lifeguarded stretches.

10. 10

    Jetties Beach and Children's Beach - the calm harbour side

    scenic

    The north shore faces Nantucket Sound rather than the Atlantic, so the water is flatter and warmer, and these two are the closest to town. Children's Beach is a lawn, a playground and a bandstand right by the wharves; Jetties is a short walk or ride further along, with lifeguards, a snack shack, courts and chairs for hire. This is the default family day.

11. 11

    Cisco Brewers - a brewery, winery and distillery sharing one yard

    food nightlife music

    An open gravel yard of picnic tables out on Hummock Pond Road where a brewery, an island winery and a distillery all trade from the same address, with food trucks, oysters and a band most summer afternoons. It sits on both a bike path and a shuttle route, deliberately, which tells you how the afternoon is expected to end.

12. 12

    Sanford Farm and the Middle Moors - walking the interior

    nature wildlife scenic

    The conservation land is the sleeper attraction. The Sanford Farm track leaves the Madaket Road and runs through moor and old pasture, past a barn on a ridge, out to an all but empty stretch of south-shore beach; the Middle Moors give you heath, kettle ponds, the cranberry bog and Altar Rock, which counts as a summit on an island this flat. Carry water and check for ticks afterwards.

13. 13

    The Oldest House and the Old Mill - the island before the money

    history

    Two survivors from before the fortune. The Jethro Coffin House of 1686 is a lopsided saltbox up on Sunset Hill with a horseshoe shape worked into its chimney, built as a wedding gift that patched up a quarrel between two founding families. The Old Mill of 1746 is a wooden smock windmill on the rise above town, assembled from wrecked ship timber and still turned into the wind by hand to grind corn.

14. 14

    The African Meeting House - Nantucket's Black community and its whalers

    history culture arts

    Whaling crews here were unusually mixed, and a free Black community grew at the southern edge of town, known as New Guinea, around a meeting house and school built on York Street in the 1820s and now restored. Absalom Boston sailed from this island as master of a whaler with an all-Black crew, the town's schools were desegregated after a long local fight, and Frederick Douglass gave one of his first speeches to a white audience in the Atheneum's hall up the hill.

15. 15

    Maria Mitchell's Nantucket - the comet, the observatory and the aquarium

    history culture arts

    A Quaker girl sweeping the sky from a bank rooftop on Main Street found a comet in 1847 and became America's first professional woman astronomer. The association named for her still keeps her birthplace on Vestal Street, a small observatory that opens for public viewing nights, a natural science museum and a working aquarium down by the harbour, which is a remarkable amount of science for an island this size.

16. 16

    Lightship baskets and Nantucket reds - the island's two inventions

    shopping culture arts

    Two things Nantucket made and still sells. The lightship basket is a tightly woven rattan basket that began as a way for crews to pass the watch aboard the offshore lightships and hardened into a lidded, scrimshaw-topped status object, still made in a handful of town workshops. Nantucket reds are the faded salmon-pink cotton trousers a Main Street outfitter has sold for generations, bought new and expected to bleach out with wear.

17. 17

    Bay scallops and the wharf dining rooms - eating on Nantucket

    food

    For its size the island eats extraordinarily well, and its own delicacy is the Nantucket bay scallop, small and sweet, taken from the eelgrass in the harbour through the cold months and worth planning an off-season trip around. In summer the wharf dining rooms and the handful of long-standing town institutions book out weeks ahead; a farm stand out on Hummock Pond Road and a famous sandwich counter on Cliff Road cover the other end of the scale.

Getting to & around Nantucket

Know before you go