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On Friday afternoons, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the Upper East Side of Manhattan is noticeably quieter. Some of the area’s residents are off to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard but the majority are en route to the east end of Long Island, a.k.a, the Hamptons, where some of the prettiest stretch of beach anywhere is a mere two hours (traffic permitting) from the city’s skyscrapers and office buildings. It’s not a single destination but a series of towns with distinct characters all strung along the southeastern coast (or south fork) of Long Island. Collectively, though, these towns serve as a summer mecca for old guard and new money, for celebrities and artists, as well as surfers, twenty-something revelers, a growing crowd of Europeans and anyone looking to escape the grueling Manhattan heat for a weekend.

The Hamptons is so legendary it’s no longer just a place; it’s also an idea, a metonym for wealth, glamour and a certain lifestyle—the kind that says “I’ve made it.” Not surprisingly, all this hype has produced a backlash, and detractors reminisce about a more pristine, bucolic Hamptons that existed before the onslaught of the “Summer People.” A brand new word, “hamptonization,” has begun to be used in reference to other rural retreats, like Nantucket and Napa Valley, whose popularity with wealthy urbanites threatens to alter their landscapes. But as anyone who has ever actually been to the Hamptons knows, the area is not all about private planes, Porsches and Prada. Yes, they have encroached on the potato fields but many rustic charms remains. All the expensive cars and designer-clad drivers are passing farm fields, vineyards and some of the country’s most beautiful, dune-swept beaches. This is, after all, the land that inspired Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning (both owned houses here) and continues to draw city artists every year. There are upscale boutiques and multi-million-dollar estates but heavy hitters also stop at farm stands—where you can purchase or pick your own fresh, locally grown produce—and live in tiny cottages in Montauk, a surfing town on the easternmost tip. And thanks to the creation of a land preservation trust supported by real estate taxes, hundreds of acres of wilderness and farmland has been protected in the past decade. Even at hotspot restaurant Nick & Toni’s, dubbed the Ivy of the Hamptons, vegetables are grown in a little outdoor garden, establishing it as a true haute barnyard. So the Hamptons might be glammed-up farmland, but it’s precisely this combination of city and country living—of the chic and the rustic—that makes this summer colony so alluring. Ask anyone sitting in gridlock on Montauk Highway, that long, single road along the South Fork, and the response will be: without a doubt, it’s worth it.