Family Guide to Exploring Nantucket 2024
Of course it wouldn’t be Summer for our family without a visit to Nantucket, one of our favorite places to enjoy a family vacation with the kids and famous for the beaches, cobblestone streets & insanely good seafood. Here’s our week-long daily itinerary featuring my favorite places to visit in Nantucket with young kids…
…if for no other reason than to get these photos the heck off my phone 🤣
All dressed up for dinner at Galley Beach, Nantucket
shout out to the sweet girls who said yes to the crazy windswept lady asking for cute family photos 😂📸
Places to visit in nantucket⛵👇🏼
Day One
Landing at ACK airport on Nantucket
We flew out of Albany, NY via Kennedy Airport for the first time to Nantucket (the Nantucket airport is the quaintest thing!)
We had lunch at my new favorite spot Island Kitchen before heading over to the our house for the week.
We stopped at Nantucket Tackle for fishing rods and supplies before heading to 40th Pole beach in the mist to surf cast for fish.
Day two
We headed out to Madaket to off-road as our usual go-to, Great Point Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Refuge, was closed due to the ‘Mating of the Piping Plover’ 🪿
On the way we stopped at Millie’s Market to grab our picnic food for the day. They do these mini fried oyster tacos 🌮 that are literally heaven in your mouth. 🤤
We spent the day getting sandy and fishing for Porgy (Scup) to cook up for dinner that night while I enjoyed a Dark n’ Stormy. 🍹
On the way home we stopped at Sayle’s Seafood for some pre-made lobster boil dinners.
Day three
We found some snapping turtles near our apartment, making us miss our little guy back home 🐢 before getting on the road to grab more squid bait from the Tackle Store
We headed over to Eel Point beach (which is great for kids as there are next to no waves!) for more Porgy fishing 🎣
A midday stop was in order for some ice cream… these were delicious!
We spent the rest of the afternoon at Madaket beach for boogie boarding and fishing. We released the smaller ones and still had a bunch leftover for dinner!
Day four
The next morning, we stopped at Island Kitchen for breakfast, Aura and I were twinning in our cute beach cover-ups!
At Great Point beach, we fished, boogie boarded and swam some more… lather, rinse, repeat when we’re here 🍹 you know I enjoyed my Dark n’ Stormy again!
On the way back, we stopped to get changed for dinner at the Egan Maritime Institute’s Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum (it looked so cool we returned later in the week!)
That night we ate dinner at the Sand Bar which is my favorite place on earth! Imagine sitting in Adirondack chairs at a picnic table, feet in the sand, cocktail in one hand and lobster rolls covered in butter in the other… H E A V E N 🤌🏼
Day FIVE
On day 5, we decided to head to the whaling museum in downtown Nantucket which was amazing 🐋
Nantucket was the whaling capital of the world, nearly rendering the species extinct with how many they caught. It was wild and so eye-opening seeing all of the statistics!
We also learned all about Nantucket’s iconic lightship baskets and their history - the craftsmanship was so beautiful! They were woven rattan around a mould with whalebone decorating the tops
We grabbed sushi on the dock for lunch before heading over to Peach Tree Kids to stock up on new Piping Prints for the kids.
That night, we cooked up our caught Porgy!
Day SIX
We had to spend our last full day at Great Point catching the waves, fish and beach vibes
It was pretty overcast this day which made for good boogie board and surf waves
Aura caught a baby shark! We of course released him back to his home 🦈
We spent our last night at Galley Beach for dinner, getting all dressed up in our fanciest clothes 💃🏻
The lighting on the beach was incredible on this night, so of course we got some gorgeous family photos!
Day SEVEN
We spent our last morning out on a boat from Island Boat Rentals - look for Jimbo in his chair on the dock to book your boat!
Then we headed out to the Egan Maritime Institute’s Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum
It was so cool seeing how they rescued people from ships with zip lines!
We grabbed sandwiches and headed to the airport. We will be BACK! 🐳
Where did you travel to this Summer? I’m already dreaming about where next year will take us…
