It may be hard to picture it now, but after the snow melts away and the sand dunes are unveiled and the trees are back to their vibrant shades of green, Cape Cod, Mass., transforms from a quiet winter area with most part-time residents retreating to warmer climes to a bustling vacation destination by late spring, with plenty of parks, beaches and family-friendly attractions for RVers.
To start off your vacation on the right foot, you should have no trouble finding the perfect campsite at one of the area’s 20-plus campgrounds. If you want your home base for your Cape explorations to be in the Upper Cape, the area furthest away from the mainland, there’s the Atlantic Oaks Campground in Eastham. Atlantic Oaks is a modern campground with full hookups and cable and large, wooded sites. If you’re bringing your bicycles, you can easily access the renowned Cape Cod Rail Trail from the campground. Its location puts you just minutes away from the Cape’s best beaches (including Cape Cod National Seashore) and Provincetown, a colorful town at the tip of the Cape that’s a haven for artists and often has street performers and parades, as well as unbeatable clam chowder and other scrumptious seafood dishes at The Lobster Pot on Commercial Street.
Driving down the Cape, Shady Knoll Campground is the sister campground to Atlantic Oaks and is located in Brewster, which is considered part of the Lower/Mid-Cape. RVs up to 35 feet are accommodated here with full-hookup sites. There are 32 golf courses on the Cape, and two fantastic ones are in Brewster. Also in the mid-Cape is its unofficial capital, Hyannis, where you can catch a boat from the scenic harbor to Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard, or go whale-watching.
If you’d prefer to stay at a campground that’s not too far from the mainland, try Cape Cod Camp Resort & Cabins in Falmouth, a town in the Upper/Mid-Cape. The RV park has sites for RVs up to 48 feet, a playground, a game room and three pools – or take a dip in the private-access freshwater lake. Nearby, the town of Woods Hole has a great hands-on aquarium for the kids and you can also catch ferries here to the islands. In the historic town of Sandwich, families shouldn’t skip Dexter Grist Mill – built in 1640 and still operating – and Thornton W. Burgess Museum to see how the story of Peter Rabbit was born.
For more information on Cape Cod, visit www.capecodchamber.org.
This article originally published in the March 2011 MotorHome magazine email newsletter.
