The only accommodation that is directly on the beach is the Cliffside Beach Club, which was the inspiration for my first novel, The Beach Club. Cliffside’s lobby is one of the most spectacular spaces on the island. The hotel has twenty-three rooms （where you step out into sand）， a pool and a fitness center, a small private café, and a private beach on Nantucket Sound. （The water is calm and good for swimming.） Cliffside is a splurge—if you can get in! Website: Cliffsidebeach.com; Instagram: @cliffsidebeachclub.
The Greydon House （not to be confused with Graydon, Edie’s creepy ex-boyfriend） used to be a private home and dentist’s office but it has been lavishly remodeled into a cozy boutique hotel with an unbelievably good restaurant, Via Mare. I have stayed at the Greydon House twice myself on a “stay-cation” and found the highlights to be the delicious breakfasts, the tiles in the showers, and the ideal in-town location. Website: Greydonhouse.com; Instagram: @greydonhouse.
When you really want to get away from it all, check out the Wauwinet Inn. It’s nine miles out of town （this is very far by Nantucket standards）， but the drive takes you along the beautiful, winding Polpis Road, where you’ll pass farms, ponds, and the Nantucket Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum. The Wauwinet is located on the harbor at the entry to Great Point. The hotel has an expansive deck lined with Adirondack chairs that overlook the harbor. There’s a library, a charming tucked-away bar, and a fine-dining restaurant, Topper’s （which is where Bone Williams takes Alessandra in this book and where Benji and Celeste have a rather emotional meal in The Perfect Couple）。 Website: Wauwinet.com; Instagram: @thewauwinet.
I Have a Place to Stay and a Way to Get Around;
Now What Do I Do?
You’re on an island, so let’s start at the beach! Nantucket has fifty miles of coastline, most of it open to the public. Some of it has auto access but you’ll need a four-wheel-drive vehicle with the proper sticker. For beaches such as Fortieth Pole and Smith’s Point, you need a town beach sticker, yours for $100 （you procure one of these at the police station—and hey, maybe you’ll see Chief Kapenash!）。 The sticker to access Great Point is purchased at the entry; it costs $160 （you can also get a day pass for $60）。 Most rental vehicles available on Nantucket come with these stickers. Before you drive onto the beach, you must let the air out of your tires down to 15 pounds （you can go lower for Great Point—there are two air hoses just past the guardhouse to refill them when you’re heading back to civilization）。
Here are my thoughts on drive-on beaches: I love them. This love intensified when I had children. Instead of schlepping all of our stuff from whatever parking spot I happened to find （if I found a parking spot—because when you have kids, it’s challenging to get out of the house in a timely fashion）， I just pulled onto the beach and all of their stuff was right there in the back of the car. There were years when the kids napped in the car, windows wide open. There were years when the kids climbed on the car （I had Jeeps; they were rugged vehicles）。 There were years when my kids climbed on my friends’ cars （even better）。 Because you can drive onto it, Fortieth Pole is particularly good for evening beach barbecues with kids—the water is calm and warm, and you’ll have a magnificent view of the sunset. Smith’s Point is hands down my favorite beach because you can access both the waves of the ocean and the flat water of the sound. There’s also a natural water slide （described in my novel The Perfect Couple）。 Smith’s Point is open only during certain weeks of the summer, depending on the nesting of the endangered piping plover.
As Lizbet says in this novel, Great Point is Nantucket’s ultimate destination. Great Point Light sits at the tippy-top of the long arm of sand that juts into the water to the north. Great Point is part of a nature preserve （hence the hefty sticker price for your vehicle） run by the Trustees of Reservations. It’s a wild, windswept landscape with the ocean on your right and the harbor on your left as you drive out. There are almost always seals. There are sometimes sharks—you’ve been warned! It is “far away” （it takes nearly forty-five minutes to get there from town）， but it’s a Nantucket experience you’ll never forget. There is a guardhouse just before the Wauwinet Inn where you purchase your sticker. On your way home, you can pop into the Wauwinet’s super-cute tiny bar for a drink. （Topper’s, the restaurant, is exquisite but expensive, even by Nantucket standards.）
There are some people who think driving on a beach is an abomination. I respect that—and so does Nantucket. Most beaches do not allow cars. Here are some of my favorite beaches that you cannot drive on. North shore beaches front Nantucket Sound and have calm water without large waves. South shore beaches are ocean beaches and normally have waves. There are sometimes rip currents. Please be careful!