fabulous place in P-town: The Benchmark Inn on Dyer Street (off of Commercial).

I had never heard the term P-town until heard it being used by local residents. It certainly does seem to be THEIR term for it.

I cannot speak for the natives of the town itself, but the people in MA commonly use the term Ptown interchangeably w/Provincetown. This includes references to it in Boston newspapers and TV as well. You will often hear a TV anchor refer to "Ptown."

On a related note, many probably know that people here tend to use the term "the Cape", and almost never refer to that part of MA as Cape Cod....

As a young woman, I summered in P-town.
Back in those days Almost every dining place run by a Portugeese resident of the town, . Ciro and Sal come along and opened a restaurant together. called "Ciro and Sal's" They had a falling out and sal opened "Sal's Place." So many famous poets and writers and painters lived that and still do.

You might try looking at PlanetOut

http://www.planetout.com/travel/dest...uides/?key=439

or Out & About

http://www.outandaboutravel.com/

At least you might get some listings of places to contact.

Have a great time.

Anyone who insists that locals would never call Provincetown PTown have obviously never been there. There are a number of businesses which use the phrase in their name. "PTown Bikes" for rental bikes comes immediately to mind. You can google and look at business after business that says things on their websites like "PTown's best place to stay" or "the best fresh fish in PTown". And if you really don't believe me, just go check out the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce website and do a bunch of links. Oh, and by the way, guess what the Chamber's website is --www.ptownchamber.com -- does that give you a clue?

What makes some people such false experts that they have the nerve to INSIST others are wrong about something so basic as calling Provincetown PTown?

I know Norman Mailer who still lives there and he calls it P-Town.
As does our famous Poet Stanley Kunitz, now almost 100, God Bless Him!
And still tends to his beautiful Garden.

For those who like like to more about P-Town:
A Little History

Where should we begin when describing Provincetown (usually called P-Town)- a most unique and eccentric town located at the tip of a 70 mile-long stretch of sand jutting out from the coast of Massachusetts?

A town, where almost ninety percent of its land mass is included within the Cape Cod National Seashore, and one with an unusual blend of history, fishing and culture. In fact, once dubbed "hell town" it was inhabited by smugglers, outlaws, pirates, escaped indentured servants, raucous mariners, "filles de joie", heavy drinkers and an assortment of other misfits, who openly had a reputation for flaunting authority.

Rich in history, since the time the Meeshawns, one of the six sub-tribes of the Wampanoag Indian federation first inhabited the area, Provincetown has always had a kind of quirkiness that has seduced individuals from diverse lifestyles to either visit or make Provincetown their home.

A free spirit reigns in P-Town, welcoming all comers representing many faces. If you are into people watching, you will notice gays, lesbians, transvestites, cross-dressers, and drag queens, attracting little or no attention, while they meander along the town's streets. Everyone is made to feel accepted, no matter what his or her sexual orientation may be.

For centuries fishermen have seasonally used its harbor, and incidentally, its harbor is the third deepest natural harbor in the World after Rio de Janeiro and Acapulco. It was the third largest major fishing and whaling port during the 18th century after Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts. As a result, many Portuguese from the Azores, the Canary Islands and Cape Verdes had immigrated here due to the abundance of employment in the whaling industry. Today, you will still find descendants of these families living in Provincetown.

The one hundred and two Pilgrims, who set out from Plymouth England on the 7th of September 1620, initially landed in Provincetown on the 21st of November, of the same year, and not in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as many of us were led to believe.

One of the most important American documents, The Mayflower Compact, the first agreement whereby free people would self-govern, was signed during the time the Pilgrims had stayed in Provincetown for five weeks.

Artists Charles Hawthorne, founder of America's first plein-air art colony, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and celebrated authors and writers as Eugene O'Neill, Norman Mailer, Tennessee Williams, Sinclair Lewis, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Stanley Kunitz, Mary Oliver, Michael Cunningham and Robert Pinsky, John Dos Passos, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Edmund Wilson have all at one time or another lived here.

In fact, on any one day you may just bump into some well-known personality walking along the main drag, Commercial Street.

Whatever the season, it is difficult to forget Provincetown the first time you visit and stroll along its narrow streets-a town that surely will delight you with its colorful past and its present day vibrancy. Where there is an abundance of art galleries, boutiques, and restaurants, fishing boats, whale-watching boats, sand dunes and one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, Race Pointe Beach. In fact, one of the most romantic attractions is to eat oysters with a bottle of champagne on the beach.

I agree it is ridiculous to say that locals don't use "Ptown".

I also agree that the title of the post if fine. As someone said earlier, if you have something to share about Provincetown, you'll recognize the title of the post. If you don't, you won't.

My best tip about October in Ptown? Rent a bike and ride on the bike path through the dunes. Absolutely gorgeous. I had no idea one would see such "fall colors" admist the low growing vegatation. We had beautiful weather and a beautiful time.

Enjoy!

PS - My hairdresser joked that she and her husband had the last heterosexual marriage at City Hall in Ptown in the 60's!

As a Mass resident, I can assure you that P'town is used by locals on a regular basis.

Snce we own property on the Cape (and stay there), I can't recommend a hotel to stay, but I just wanted to mention that vacation rentals for a group of larger than 2 might prove an economical alternative to a hotel. The prices and minimum stay requirements drop significantly after Labor Day, so you may end up having more space for less money.

I;ve come up with a new word for fodors

Pompassity: those who know oh so much better than the locals about what is local, because they have BEEn there... they are pompous assities acting pompously.

P'Town is glorious in the off season. I hope Klvaughan will return to this post and book her wild Women's Week adventure. If she does......Chesters' was amazing for our big night out. Tera Luna in NTruro was fantastic with a lower price tag.....ceasar and mushroom ragu kept me quite happy...

Love P'Town. Know a dozen property owners, and a quick survey tells me they ALL call it P'Town....??????