Cape Cod

Southeast of Boston, Cape Cod reaches into the Atlantic in a long, thin crescent lined by white-sand beaches. The part nearest to the city is dotted with cozy villages like Sandwich, the cape's oldest, within easy reach of a long dune-backed beach. And this is altually one of the best day trips from Boston. Here, you'll find historic sites like the three-centuries-old Dexter Grist Mill and the impressive collections of Sandwich Glass Museum, where you can watch a glassblowing demonstration.

In lively Hyannis Port, where you can visit a memorial to John F. Kennedy whose family summered here, take a scenic cruise on Lewis Bay for views of the south coast. Falmouth, also on the southern shore, is where you can catch a ferry to the island of Martha's Vineyard. Although a day's driving tour of Cape Cod isn't long enough to reach lively Provincetown, at the far tip of the cape, you can go there directly from Boston on the Boston to Provincetown & Cape Cod High Speed Ferry, which leaves from Long Wharf and speeds you to MacMillan Pier, in the heart of Provincetown. The miles of dunes and long white beaches of the "Outer Cape," as this part is called, is protected as the Cape Cod National Seashore.

Address: 99 Marconi Site Road, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, United States.

Official site: capecod.score.org

Phone: 508-775-4884

Entrance fee: $20 is the daily vehicle fee, $3 for pedestrians and bicyclists, and $10 for motorcycles

Google rating: 4.6/5.0