Hi friends, welcome back! We recently spent a week in Nantucket, and I thought I’d share some snapshots with you. This year we drove to Hyannis and then took the high-speed ferry over. The last time we drove we said never again, but we are at least an hour closer, so we figured we’d see how it goes. Thankfully we had a smooth travel day. This is our fourth time going to Nantucket, so we usually go with no plans only dinner reservations. I’ll share some highlights of each day and some of our favorite eats.
Day One: Our mornings always started by getting some lattes at Handlebar Café and finding a bench along Main Street to people watch. We spent the morning doing some shopping in town and then met up with our friends at the Sandbar at Jettie’s Beach. Our friends from the city joined us a few days of the trip and Violet got to see her BFF. While we waited for our reservation the girls played in the sand and it was nice not having to chase them around. This restaurant had a live band at dinner so it was a fun time for all.
Every night ended at Juice Bar (the most popular ice cream spot that doesn’t actually sell juice) for some nightly ice cream. There’s always a long line, but it moves quick. My favorite flavor of the trip was Cookie Butt which was vanilla ice cream with Oreo and Butterfinger chunks. Violet was a big fan of ice cream this year. Her arms would instinctually try to grab the cone when we gave her bites.
Day Two: we took the Wave bus to Surfside Beach to meet up with our friends. The waves here were powerful, so we only dipped our toes in the water. This beach is on the ocean side so if you have younger kids, I’d recommend Children’s Beach or Jetties Beach which are in Nantucket Sound.
We had dinner at Cru, one of the most coveted reservations on the island, and the food was excellent. I loved the Lobster Fra Diavolo and Jon enjoyed his lobster roll. Jon and I tried their Crucumber drink that everyone loves, but we instantly regretted it. Tasted too much like a green juice with a vodka aftertaste. To get a reservation and we all set alarms in our calendar to make sure we got one right when they were released.
Day Three: we took a long walk around town admiring the beautiful homes and landscaping. This is our favorite thing to do in Nantucket, we could spend hours just strolling around the island. Our walk took us to Brandt Point Lighthouse that greets everyone coming in by boat.
We had an early dinner at Nautilus, another hard reservation to get. I love their Dan Dan noodles and their version of crab fried rice.
After dinner we started going to the to the playground in the harbor and the lighting was so pretty. It was a great spot to walk and digest dinner before our nightly dessert.
Day Four: Jon had some work commitments, so we did more shopping and walking around in the morning to be close to home.
We wanted a break from dining out so we grabbed some pizza from Pizzeria Gemelle and took it to the park. I got a hot honey pizza and unfortunately a wasp was interested in it too.
Day Five: we went to Children’s Beach to go swimming. I went in, but Violet wasn’t too interested in anything other than dipping her toes. Maybe next year…
We went to Proprieter’s for dinner and this was one of our favorite meals of the trip. The menu is a lot of sharables and a few bigger plates. We enjoyed sampling the different dishes.
Day Six: our last full day we took the bus to Sconset to walk to the Sankaty Light House. The walk is about half an hour from town and longer than we remembered, but it’s a tradition.
We went to Brotherhood of Theives for our last meal and Violet got a massive serving of chicken tenders and fries from the kids menu while we feasted on some fresh sushi.
We ended the night seeing the full moon over the harbor before getting one last ice cream.
Day Seven: we savored our last coffee, grabbed some final souvenirs, sandwiches from Provisions, and then we took the 11:10am ferry back to Hyannis. I made the big mistake of suggesting we eat our sandwiches before getting on the bus to the parking lot instead of hopping on the bus that was there waiting. We had to wait 25 minutes until the next bus came and it felt like an eternity. Thankfully traffic wasn’t bad on the way home and the drive took about four hours. We stopped at an outlet mall, grabbed some groceries, and then we were home sweet home.
I realized I unintentionally took a month off from the blog! I usually always take a break when we travel but then we had back-to-back plans. We hosted Jon’s parents a few days after we got back from Nantucket and then shortly after we were in Michigan a week for my sister’s wedding. It’s been a busy end to summer but so great to spend time with our families. Violet especially eats up all the attention! I think this was the busiest summer of our lives, especially with the move. All that to say I’m back to regularly scheduled content and looking forward to a slower fall 🙂
Looks like a perfect summer trip!
Wow, you guys ate well on this trip! Sounds like a fun getaway and a busy but fun summer overall. Looking forward to reading more of what you’ve been up to!
I’ve read a few of Elin Hilderbrand’s novels and her descriptions of the Nantucket locales match your photos. I’d love to visit the island some day, but it seems the timing is essential to avoid the summer rush and have a shot at reservations at the better restaurants. Hopefully the visit was as uncrowded as your photos suggest. The weather looked great too, even if it was likely hot/humid. All of which is to ask, what did you think of the timing of your trip – best time of year to go?