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Exploring America » Eastern US, US Cities » Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod Skyline

Credit Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce

Cozy up to the roaring sea as the sun sets over 1600s inspired Barnstable Village for EVP recording at known haunted locations on a Ghost Hunter Tour that will immerse you in the dark history of the island. Another unusual adventure on the Cape will take your group reminiscing at Wellfleet Drive-In Theatre for today’s movies with a 1950s vibe on a 100’ screen. Several homes in the upper Cape have withstood the tests of time, like the Hoxie House of 1637, said to be the oldest of them all. This building invites you to a museum of Colonial heritage and a lesson in why we say things like, “It’s raining cats and dogs!” A well-known landmark for early explorers with a rich whaling and trade history that remains evident here and on neighboring islands, has been a favorite resort destination for decades and offers nearly 560 miles of wild, windswept and driftwood strewn beaches peppered with vocal grey seals, quaint harbors, haunting sand dunes, endless cranberry bogs and famed, winking lighthouses like Race Point and Sandy Neck to explore! If tame is your game and you aren’t interested in clamoring up rocky cliffs and rugged terrain, the breathtaking Cape Cod National Seashore preserve presents 40 miles of clean, sandy beach and trails for you to ride or wander and comb at your leisure. The Cape is a highly favored destination of sports anglers and outdoor enthusiasts, alike; antique hunters, gallery browsers and bed and breakfast aficionados flock in droves to her quaint towns and it would seem none are immune to her abundant natural and architectural charms and eclectic culture! With a somewhat cooler, yet moderate climate, Cape Cod offers visitors perfect year-round opportunities for a fabulously versatile, comfortable stay. While peak season sees the height of commercial tourist activity, the shoulder seasons of late spring and early fall offer equally enchanting experiences-that steamy, thick bowl of fresh Boston clam chowder you’ve been dreaming of will taste as good in July as it would in December!

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Sample Itineraries

Attractions

Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory

What’s not to love about a simple, relatively quick yet comprehensive, self-guided fun tour…of a Potato Chip Factory offering delicious free sample bags? Over 250,000 visitors a year visit The Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory to learn the salty history and witness firsthand the step-by-step creation of these *Ridiculously Good Potato Chips!* The Chip Factory’s journey to potato chip fame and fortune had its humble beginnings back in 1980 when the dream of two small Cape Cod business owners turned into reality once they opened shop in a small storefront in Hyannis to sell the fantastic homestyle chips they’d cooked in their kitchen for years. The hearty crunch of the fabulous snacks cooked in small batches in real custom kettles soon became a mad crave amongst the locals and visitors alike-news spread like wildfire as tourists returned home with bags of the delightfully tasty and naturally noisy treats to share with family and friends. It wasn’t long before the chip business outgrew the cozy storefront, and a world-wide love affair with Cape Cod Potato Chips began! The Chip Factory Tour is now one of the area’s top attractions and details, from farm field to table, how these out of this world chips are made! Open Monday through Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, tours are FREE…and if complimentary sample bags aren’t enough, the gift shop and store offers visitors the opportunity to broadcast their chip love with tees, beach totes or chairs, mugs, fun buckets, coolers and tons of other must-have CCPC branded merchandise- as well as as many additional bags of chips as you can carry!

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Martha’s Vineyard

Accessible only by air or sea, this beloved-yet-exclusive hotspot, vacation colony and host of the yearly “Jawsfest” is located just six miles off scenic Cape Cod; once your travel group steps off the steamship ferry they will have no trouble discovering many things to love about the captivatingly beautiful 100-square-mile New England island! In addition to the substantial peak-season crowd, many high profile residents and affluent East Coast families call the six fabulously unique towns of the Vineyard home; it’s not difficult to see why: a temperate year-round climate offers multi-seasonal getaway opportunities and ensures Martha’s Vineyard, the gem of the Atlantic, remains one of the most popular of New England’s destinations. In the off season, the picturesque island and its wind-swept, sandy shores and landscapes lie peacefully accessible; the droves of summer sun, sand, surf and seafood seekers are home raking leaves or busying themselves with the details of returning to school. There is no bad time to visit! Grab a bicycle or scooter, call a cab or hop a bus and explore her quaintly quintessential seaside villages full of gingerbread cottages and stately Greek revival architecture, all steeped in a rich fishing and whaling history. Lace up your comfy shoes and hike miles of gorgeous beaches and trails; explore iconic old lighthouses, wander magnificent wildlife havens or just shop to your heart’s content – fun to fancy boutiques, shops and markets abound! The Vineyard’s charming cafes, fantastic restaurants, cozy theatres, welcoming bed and breakfasts, and elegant inns all afford you and your group the opportunity for a perfect East Coast Island getaway.

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Cape Cod Mall

It’s a lazy, salt-hazy Cape afternoon; you’ve got big plans tomorrow so tonight will be a low-key kind of evening. Your travel group has bellied up to the table at your new favorite outdoor cafe, and you’ve just emptied your huge bowl of chowder, popped the last stray oyster cracker into your mouth and talk has turned to dessert. Then it dawns on you, your favorite, cozy sweatpants for later are miles away, back home-folded but forgotten-along with that crisp, new paperback you grabbed for your trip-on your bed! You freeze, for a moment, clenching your crumpled napkin, crinkling your straw paper and flicking at a crumb: What to do? Where does one go on Cape Cod for…sweatpants? Everyone forgets things in the excitement of packing; but you are not without options! Walk off that delightfully late lunch and track down something to satisfy that sweet tooth at the Cape Cod Mall, a regional favorite of locals and visitors alike! Conveniently located in the heart of the Hyannis retail district, and just the right size to offer a little of everything you’d expect from a stop at your favorite mega-center but in a slightly downsized resort-town venue! Browse Barnes and Noble for another beach-blanket read and a little you-time; duck into the cinema for a flick and let your food settle. You’ll find plenty of your of old favorites in addition to anchor store Macy’s: Marshalls, Hot Topic, Sephora, J. Crew, Hollister, Victoria’s Secret, Forever 21, Gap, Banana Republic, Pac Sun, Wet Seal, AE Outfitters-the mall is home to nearly 100 shops and eateries-all open 10 am to 9 pm Monday through Saturday and 11 am to 6 pm Sundays-plenty of fabulously familiar places to locate those sweats and a few other things you might want for your seaside adventure getaway! Careful-you could easily find yourself staying until dinnertime! No worries! Full service cafes and restaurants, in addition to a 400-seat food court will cater to all craves: Time for Thai? Missing Mexican? Prefer pizza? You’ll find it all-at Cape Cod Mall!

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Cape Cod Dolphin Fleet / Whale Watching

Whale jumping out of water

Credit Kim Hojackni

Whale watching is the ideal group travel attraction: it combines fun and learning to the extent that they are indistinguishable. The Dolphin Fleet Whale Watch operates out of the port of Provincetown at the easternmost end of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. At this location Provincetown is already 40 miles out to sea and only eight miles from Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, an ancestral feeding ground for humpback whales and other large marine mammals as well as a host of other marine wildlife and birds. There is a lot to see and learn on an eco-excursion out to Stellwagen Bank. By the time the group is on the boat they are prepared to make the most of the presentation, which is given by the naturalist for every whale watching trip as the vessel makes its way out to sea. This presentation is much more general in content, pointing out historic sights, such as lighthouses and the sites of abandoned settlements in the Cape Cod National Seashore, which comprises more than three-quarters of Provincetown’s land mass. Provincetown is the only place in America to have three functioning lighthouses within its borders. The naturalist has a microphone at the ready during this part of the trip to draw groups’ attention to wildlife sightings as they appear, such as pelagic birds, which spend almost their entire life at sea and only come ashore to breed and nest. Sea turtles swimming in the current and seals hauled out on the desolate beaches are also valuable sightings. No whale watch is ever the same and groups soon realize they need to scan the shore, sky and sea to see what’s going to happen next. Of course the next big thing is a whale spout visible on the horizon. While the Dolphin crew and naturalists are constantly scanning the sea for the first sign of whales, sometimes it’s the passengers who get to say, “thar’ she blows!”. Whales are air-breathing mammals, like us, and must surface to exhale and inhale. Exhalations from their giant lungs are estimated to have the force of a 100 mph wind and are visible when their hot breath vaporizes in the cooler air at the water surface. They can easily reach a height of twenty or thirty feet. When whales are around the vessel the naturalist typically lets the groups experience their presence without much lecturing other than to name the individuals, identify their calves, and to point out characteristic behaviors such as bubble feeding and lunge feeding. The whale breaches are self-explanatory ~ when a 40-ton whale explodes out of the depths to reveal sometimes over half of their bodies in mid air, the groups are engaged and in tune with the whales. No one knows exactly why whales exhibit this breaching behavior but one guess is they do it out of sheer exuberance, something the kids can certainly relate to, especially on a whale watch.

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