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Walk the beach to your heart’s content, inhaling therapeutic breaths of salty air. Ogunquit gets its name from Algonquin for “beautiful place by the sea,” which is how native people described this flat, sandy 3½-mile stretch along the southern Maine coast. Ogunquit’s Marginal Way is one of the premier coastal walking pathways in New England.
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Best New England Coastal Town For Walkers As parents of three, hoteliers Gwenn and Mark Snider know a thing or two about keeping kids happy. The Winnetu Oceanside Resort, a longtime family favorite, features upscale lodging within an easy stroll of South Beach. Then bring your bike on the two-minute ferry ride over to Chappaquiddick and remote Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge, a long stretch of coast that’s home to endangered piping plovers, ospreys, and the occasional bald eagle.īike rentals are available in all the major towns if you get tired easily, note that local buses are equipped to carry bikes, so you might want to pedal one way and take public transportation back. If you can tear yourself away from the sublime white sand of South Beach, pedal four miles on a well-paved bike path to the Vineyard’s oldest settlement, Edgartown, and meander past whaling captains’ homes from the 18th and 19th centuries.
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One of the real joys of going to the Vineyard is leaving your car behind and using a bike to get around on the trails, which branch off in every direction like spokes on a wheel. At day’s end, stay at the West Street Hotel overlooking the ocean waters, and rest your weary muscles in the rooftop pool. Venture on half-day sea kayaking jaunts in the Atlantic, during which you can keep an eye out for harbor seals and search for sea glass on deserted Frenchman Bay islands. Bike the shores of Eagle Lake via a carriage path (one of the gravel roads that crisscross the eastern half of the island) that extends for six miles under towering firs and over century-old stone bridges. The more intepid will want to opt for the Precipice and Beehive trails, where iron rungs lead you up steep cliff walls. Kids will enjoy the hikes up North Bubble and South Bubble, peaks that stand less than 1,000 feet (especially when you reward them with freshly baked popovers at nearby Jordan Pond House afterward). Get yourself acclimated by starting with a gentle climb up Acadia Mountain to savor the view of Norumbega Mountain’s precipitous cliffs sliding into Somes Sound, creating the only fjord on the eastern seaboard.
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Search new homes Search Please enter a valid location or select an item from the list.Bar Harbor is the gateway to New England’s foremost natural playground, Acadia National Park.
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