When vacationing with kids, your first inclination is to look for ideas on keeping them occupied and stimulated, both mentally and physically. Luckily, Cape Cod is an all-ages destination with plenty of ways to ensure your children are busy, no matter the season or weather.
The town of Brewster, in particular, is loaded with activities for young kids, teens, and adults alike through its parks, beaches, museums, and entertainment venues. The result is that you’ll never run out of things to do.
It doesn’t matter if you’re only on the Cape for a week or plan to spend the better part of your summer here, you can take advantage of everything on this list of the top five activities for children in Brewster.
1. Harbor Lights Mini-Golf
Located on Underpass Road, just off Route 6A, Harbor Lights Mini Golf provides an excellent outing for visitors with kids. The venue is open from 10 AM until 10 PM during the summer, so you can head over whenever you have some time to kill, even for dessert, since 11 different flavors of Gifford’s Ice Cream are available.
The course opens on weekends starting in the middle of April and then operates daily from mid-June through Labor Day weekend. A round of golf costs $8 for adults and $7 for kids 12 and under, making Harbor Lights Mini Golf an affordable way to spend a few hours.
As a bonus, Harbor Lights added new greens in 2018, ensuring everything is in great shape for your next round.
2. Cape Cod Museum of Natural History
Just because it’s the summer holidays doesn’t mean your kids should neglect their education, and the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History makes it easy to learn something new while on the Cape. Here, there are exhibits on archaeology, biomimicry, honey bees, birds, butterflies, salt marshes, the Wampanoag people, and Cape Cod’s landscape, so your children will return home knowing much more about this unique part of the country than when they arrived. Admission is $15 for ages 13-64, $10 for seniors, $6 for ages three to 12, and free for those two and under.
Or, if you’ve booked your Cape Cod summer vacation rental well ahead of time (and you should), you can enroll your kids in one of the museum’s KidSummer Day Programs. Each session is five days long and between three and six hours each day, depending on the age of the child.
The classes run between late June and the middle of August, teaching students about the relationships found throughout the natural environment, including their personal roles in the eco-system. Since 400 acres of woods, marshes, beaches, brooks, and dunes surround the museum, your kids will have the chance to get up close and personal with these concepts and relationships.
3. Herring Run at the Stony Brook Grist Mill
When visiting the Cape in April or May, you might have the chance to check out one of the world-famous herring runs. The gist is that once temperatures reach the low 50s, herring swim up local streams and rivers, back to the same freshwater bodies where they were born, to spawn the next generation of fish. The exact dates of the migration are never known, since the herring run is weather dependent, but if you’re lucky enough to be on Cape Cod when it’s taking place, the herring run is something you must experience.
In Brewster, the best place to check out the herring run is the Stony Brook Grist Mill and Museum, which is in the west part of town on Stony Brook Road. The old mill is still in service and is home to an alewife migration every year. The venue features fish ladders and plenty of places to catch the action. Your kids will also marvel at the thousands of seagulls that flock to the area in search of an easy meal.
4. Nickerson State Park
With 19 acres of wilderness, eight freshwater ponds, an eight-mile bike trail, beaches, swimming, basketball courts, a playground, and horseback riding, Nickerson State Park has enough activities that you could spend an entire week there without running out of things to do. The park is just outside of downtown Brewster and even provides easy access to the Cape Cod Rail Trail, should you want to bike, jog, or walk a little further.
While at the park, your kids can swim at Flax Pond and Big Cliff Pond, as they both have small beaches. Sometimes, Jack’s Boat Rental has stand-up paddleboards, canoes, and kayaks for rent at Flax Pond, while you can arrange other boat rentals at Big Cliff Pond. If you don’t see any rentals available, Jack’s storefront is only about 20 minutes away in Wellfleet and will deliver on rentals of three or more days. Parking at Nickerson State Park is $8 for Massachusetts residents and $15 for non-residents per day.
5. Brewster Sand Flats and Bay Beaches
Of course, you could always spend your days with your kids lounging on Brewster’s beautiful oceanfront beaches. Brewster has some of the country’s most impressive tidal sand flats, and when the tide is out, you can walk a long way out to explore. Your kids will also enjoy the warm, calm water because it makes for a relaxing beach experience.
Breakwater Beach and Crosby Landing Beach are perhaps the best locations to visit with children because the sand is close to the parking lot and there’s enough room to find a space of your own. The sand flats also create warm pools of water everywhere. Paines Creek is excellent for younger kids who want to build sandcastles or play with their buckets, while Robbins Hill is a little rockier and, therefore, more so for families with teenagers.
Brewster town beaches require stickers for parking, and they cost $20 per day, $60 for a week, and $150 for the entire season for non-residents. Also, remember that none of the town’s beaches on Cape Cod Bay have lifeguards.
Keeping Your Kids Busy
Brewster is a paradise when traveling with children because the beaches and water are so family-friendly, and there are other ventures away from the ocean, as well.
Nowhere else on the Cape has such a diverse selection of activities for your young ones, so be sure to make Brewster one of your stops on your next Cape Cod vacation.