Nantucket: Strategies: Lay of the Land

Nantucket is just fourteen miles long and three and a half miles wide. Unlike Martha’s Vineyard, which has six distinctive towns, Nantucket is divided into town—where the ferries arrive and most of the restaurant and shops are located—and the rest of the island. The villages of Siasconset (pronounced “Sconset”) and Madaket frame it on the eastern and western shores, respectively. The island’s strict zoning laws have preserved the 19th-century feel, and most of the homes are gray-shingled cottages that have not changed much since Nantucket was one of the East Coast’s whaling capitals until the early 1800s. Particularly town, with its white church steeples and mansions with widow’s walks looks much like the setting described by Herman Melville in Moby-Dick, which was partially set here (incidentally, the author had never visited Nantucket when he wrote the classic). The rest of the island is made up of moody moors and sprawling cranberry bogs, plus miles of sandy beaches, nearly all of which are open to the public.