Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket: What are the biggest differences?
 

Planning a summer trip with my hubby and trying to decide between MV or Nantucket. Can anyone help?

If you google your question, you'll find a thread here, old but still accurate
http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...antucket-2.cfm

Another from tripadvisor
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...achusetts.html

An article from the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041401208.html

I would suggest either island in September, since it is just you and your husband. Rates go down slightly, crowds go down significantly, and the weather and water temp usually are pretty excellent. I've spent a bit of time on both islands. We prefer Nantucket, but they are both wonderful.

That said, you couldn't talk me into MV during the summer season. To me, it is a huge traffic jam. Off season, I would love to stay in Chappy, but on season, the ferry backs up and Edgartown can be a madd house. Thank you Bill Clinton and Barry Obama.

Traffic is awful in both places until the third week in August when families with school children have to leave.

I live in Nantucket so I am prejudiced, but Nantucket is more compact, has more historic houses, and has more accessible beaches. In Massachusetts, property owners own all the way down to the low water line. If your feet are out of the water, you are trespassing. In Nantucket, we have the One Big Beach program where landowners allow the public to use their beaches under certain defined conditions.

Thank you, all very helpful!
What are thoughts on having enough to do on Nantucket for 7 days? How are biking/hiking areas, etc.?

"In Massachusetts, property owners own all the way down to the low water line"

Interesting. In Connecticut and Rhode Island private property ends at high high water and we politely (sometimes, not my fault) tell property owners who think otherwise to stuff it!

Yep, it is a difference. To complicate the issue, you can walk between the two tide lines if you are fishing or hunting and carrying the equipment for either sport. All colonial stuff, I think.

You can also drive on many of our beaches before 8 and after 5, with a beach sticker. You can go to Great Point, driving on the beach, with a Great Point sticker.

The regulations are often a shock for people who come from Florida and other states where all beaches are open to pedestrians if not to vehicles.

A beach tow from out toward Great Point will cost you north of $300 in cash, and the tow truck will gladly follow you to the nearest ATM. Their answer to "but I have Mercedes towing!" is "So have them send a tow truck from the dealer."

Given the information above about access to the beaches I'd say one of the biggest differences is/are these two islands are not the Outer Banks.

Is the water really warm enough to actually swim in and if so, when is the best time of year to actually do that?

As someone who grew up swimming in New England waters I found it fine from June through September. For temperatures go to:

www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/natl.html

the gulf stream runs right along the south of Martha's Vineyard, so the water is actually a bit warmer than places like MA north shore, or southern Maine. It is definitely swimmable. It warms up through the summer, so is the nicest in August and early September.

I always though the #1 difference was Nantucket: old money, Martha's Vinyard: new money ??

An important difference, china_cat.

Another is that the Vineyard tends to have a lot more media people, especially personalities, where Nantucket has more business and investment people, and the media people tend to be network presidents rather than movie stars.

People in Nantucket make it a point of pride to pretend not to recognize celebrities when they see them, granting them the privacy they would want for themselves under similar circumstances.

Nantucket has a substantial Cape Verdean, Azorean, and African American population as well as lots and lots of Jamaicans in recent years, but there are fewer African Americans who summer here the way they do on the Vineyard and in Sag Harbor, which was also a whaling town. Oddly enough, many of these people qualify as the kind of Old Money in their tastes and backgrounds. I would like to invite them to come on over to ACK!

As to swimming, I don't much go in over my knees before mid-July but it is wonderful until mid-September and beyond and always good at shallow beaches like Jetties.

We've only been to Nantucket, but we really enjoyed it. I remember we went sailing on the Endeavor, and that was a lot of fun. Lots of good restaurant choices too. We went in September, and the beaches were deserted. We paired it with a trip to Boston.

I would guess Nathaniel Philbrick brings a little of the literary cachet formerly associated with the Vineyard to Nantucket. Judging from some of the newer beach housing there -- and the private jets at the airport -- it would seem to be attracting its share of new money these days.

Volcanogirl, that makes me very happy to know.

Jim Genthner, Captain of the Endeavor, is one of the finest people I have ever known. He is knowledgeable about Nantucket and its history, he is a joy to sail with, and he is a wise man in an unassuming way.

I have to disclose that my son worked as his mate for six summers during and after college and probably learned more from him than his university. One of the things that has stayed with us all is Jim's advice to our son when they had a boat full of miserable clients: "D___, you can put up with anybody for an hour!"

Nantucket is pretty much one town, quiet, elegant old money billionaires, Republican (even though John Kerry is a resident). The Vineyard has more to do, 5 towns, more restaurants and nightlife and is the home to more new money billionaires and is Democrat. Both have some of the most beautiful beaches in the U.S. September is the best time to visit either. The water will be the warmest in Oak Bluffs.