There are places to get away from it all on Cape Cod, even during a holiday weekend in the summer. CapeCodOnline.com offers some serenity-now spots that are slightly off the beaten path.
Coast Guard Beach, accessed only by shuttle bus during summer, is a popular -- yet relatively quiet -- spot in Eastham.Editor's note: Conor Berry is a former Provincetown bureau chief for the Cape Cod Times and worked with Eric Williams.
Cape Cod, that popular appendage off the southeastern belly of the Bay State, isn't always a parking lot during the summer months. That is, if you know how to avoid the crowd.
If you're looking for salt water taffy, miniature golf or beach-themed trinkets and tchotchkes, then Route 28 on the regular-Joe South Side may be just the ticket. Or maybe you'll pilgrimage out -- way, way out -- to Provinetown, the Cape's version of Venice Beach and Greenwich Village rolled into one, where shops specializing in kitsch and no-frills wharfside dining bump up against upscale art galleries, boutiques and bistros.
A quiet stretch of beach in a remote section of Brewster, a Lower Cape town located on the North Side.
You're looking at Nobska Point Light, just outside the village of Woods Hole in the town of Falmouth. Nobska Road connects to the Shining Sea Bikeway, a 10.7-mile coastal road that cuts through salt marsh, cranberry bogs, ponds and woodlands and offers sweeping views of Vineyard Sound.But, if you want to get as far away from the madding crowd as possible, the Cape still has some sleepy summertime spots that either (A) few people know about, or (B) few people, if any, visit on warm summer days. From fire trails dotting remote pine and scrub oak forests of the Outer Cape to quiet kettle ponds nestled in interior sections of the Mid Cape to rocky coastlines more reminiscent of Maine than the powder-sand beaches of Cape Cod National Seashore, there are plenty of places to escape to if you're not feeling particularly extroverted this holiday weekend.
CapeCodOnline's Eric Williams, a former Cape Cod Times reporter and Outer Cape radio personality, gives a guided tour of some of the Cape's "quiet" spots -- hidden jewels that will make you feel like Robinson Crusoe even if you're really only a stone's throw from civilization.