Hyannis, one of the seven "villages" of the Cape Cod Town of Barnstable MA (map), gained national fame during the presidency of John F Kennedy because of his summer home in neighboring Hyannis Port.
In fact, Hyannis has been the center of Cape Cod commerce, transportation and lodging for a long time. It's the cape's largest settlement, with the greatest number of services, including commerce and, especially, hotels and transportation. Hyannis can be a good base for your explorations of the cape. More...
Hyannis is the transportation hub of Cape Cod, with its major bus terminal, train station, ferry docks and airport. Details in the Cape Cod Transportation Guide.
Main Street and South Street, parallel thoroughfares in the town center, are the centers of urban life, with lots of restaurants, cafés, bars, shops, small museums, and municipal services.
There's a Visitors Center in the John F Kennedy Museum in Hyannis center.
Look for the John F Kennedy Museum (map) and you've found the Hyannis Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center.
Hyannis, the largest settlement on Cape Cod, has a great variety of hotels, motels, inns and bed-and-breakfast houses, some quite near the beaches.
Heritage House Hotel, Hyannis MA.
Hyannis has dozens of hotels, motels, inns and B&Bs in great variety. The most convenient are those close to the town center, on and off Main Street (map).
Hotel Map with Prices
Use this handy Hotel Map with Prices to see locations, room rates and availability. (Don't see the map? It's your ad-blocker. Click here instead!)
The 3-star, 142-room Heritage House Hotel, centrally located and convenient to everything, has 143 modern rooms, indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Right at the intersection of Main, Pleasant and Center streets (map), it's walking distance to Main Street's restaurants and shops, to the Pleasant Street and Ocean Street ferry docks, to the Hyannis Transportation Center and train station, and a 20-minute walk to the nearest beach. With parking so difficult in summer, this is a real convenience. More...
The 2-star, 18-room Cape Cod Harbor House Inn is, as its name implies, very near Hyannis Harbor, but it's also just a few blocks from the town center—a thrifty, well-located choice.
Hyannis Beaches
The Town of Barnstable, including its population center of Hyannis, has eleven beaches, but only six (map) are open to everyone; the others are private or reserved for town-resident taxpayers.
Orrin Keyes Beach, Hyannis MA.
Visitors pay for the beach by paying for parking, so if you walk or bike there, or arrive by car late in the afternoon after the pay-collectors have departed for the day, you probably won't have to pay.
Here are Barnstable and Hyannis's six public beaches:
Veterans Park Beach
Veterans Park Beach on Ocean Street, just over a mile (1.6 km, a 20-minute walk) due south of the Hyannis Transportation Center and a half-mile (800 meters) south of the Ocean Street (Hy-Line Ferry) Docks, is the closest beach to the center of Hyannis. Right next to the John F Kennedy Memorial, it overlooks Hyannis's boat-filled harbor and the Hyannis Yacht Club.
Facilities include pay parking, a bathhouse, toilets, snack stand, picnic area with grills, and a lifeguard.
Kalmus Park Beach
Kalmus Park Beach, at the southern end of Ocean Street 1.7 miles (2.7 km; 35- to 45-minute walk) from the Hyannis Transportation Center, and 6/10 mile (1 km) south of Veterans Park Beach, is actually two beaches: one toward the harbor and one toward the ocean. Surfing is allowed from the ocean beach.
Kalmus Park Beach
A bathhouse, toilets, lifeguard and snack sales serve both beaches, and there's pay parking.
Orrin Keyes Beach
At the southern end of Sea Street, 1.3 miles (2.09 km; 22- to 28-minute walk; map) from the JFK Museum, Keyes Beach (also called Sea Street Beach) has a bathhouse, toilets, lifeguard, snack stand and pay parking, and extends westward into the private Ocean Avenue Beach toward the Kennedy Compound.
Craigville Beach
Craigville is one of those l-o-n-g, sandy Nantucket Sound beaches that makes Cape Cod such a beach-lover's paradise. It extends along Centerville Harbor 4.3 miles (7 km) southwest of the Hyannis Transportation Center (map). Bath house with showers and toilets, snack stand and pay parking are the services.
Sandy Neck Beach
Sandy Neck Beach, off MA Route 6A facing Cape Cod Bay in West Barnstable, 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the Hyannis Transportation Center (map), is the town's finest northern, warm-water beach. It has the standard services: bath house with toilets, and snack stand.
Hathaway's Pond Beach
For freshwater swimming, Hathaway's Pond, on Phinney's Lane 3 miles northwest of the Hyannis Transportation Center, is Hyannis's contribution. There's a bath house with toilets.
Harbor Cruises
It's a classic Cape Cod activity: a daytime, sunset or moonlight cruise out of Hyannis Inner Harbor to survey the grand mansions and yachts along the shore, Great Island, Egg Island, Squaw Island, Point Gammon Light and other lighthouses, to smell the salt breeze and chat with other travelers.
Take your pick: a sleek, smooth, modern catamaran or a historic Maine coastal boat, but do get out on the water to see Hyannis from the water.
Reserve your place(s) in advance for either cruise, and be at the dock at least 30 minutes before cruise departure for boarding and safety instruction.
Bay Spirit Tours
Bay Spirit Tours (tel 508-771-0107) operates guided Lighthouse Harbor tours and non-guided sunset cruises with its 63-foot (19-meter) motor catamaran Bay Spirit.
The Bay Spirit departs from Hyannis's Ocean Street Dock, adjoining Bismore Memorial Park, opposite the Black Cat Restaurant, and near the Hy-Line Cruises docks for ferries to Nantucket (map).
Hy-Line Cruises
Speaking of Hy-Line Cruises, they also operate one-hour Hyannis harbor cruises. In fact, it was this cruise that established the company back in 1962. More...
The Prudence with the wind astern.
Hy-Line also offers a Rail & Sail tour that includes a 2-hour scenic ride aboard the Cape Cod Central Railroad and a 1-hour harbor cruise. You pay less for the package than you would for the separate rail tour and harbor cruise, but you needn't take them together on the same day. It's a good deal.
Cape Cod Central Railroad
Take a train ride into the lovely countryside of Cape Cod and enjoy lunch, brunch or dinner in the dining car, freshly prepared right on the train.
Boarding in Hyannis for a Luncheon excursion ride.
I love trains! They're civilized. There's plenty of room and you can live normally as you travel: sit in comfort, stroll around and chat with other travelers, even enjoy fine dining as you roll.
New England has a number of scenic and historic railways.
The age of gracious train travel may be long past, but you can still experience it in Hyannis by boarding a Cape Cod Central Railroad excursion train for a 46-mile (74-km) ride through the beautiful salt marsh country and cranberry bogs of the Cape, all the way to the Cape Cod Canal and its bridges, enjoying fine dining as you roll.
Dine as you Travel
Your multi-course lunch, Sunday brunch or dinner is prepared fresh in the onboard kitchen and served by experienced railroad waiters right at your table decorated with fresh flowers. There's full bar service.
Nostalgic Comfort
You ride in authentic 20th-century rail cars that have been carefully restored and fitted with 21st-century safety and comforts, including climate control. Traction is by diesel locomotive.
Variety of Excursions
The Cape Cod Central Railroad offers a variety of rail excursions, including the Colonial Lunch Train, Yankee Clipper Brunch Train, Dome Car Dining, and special holiday trains, with First Class and Platinum Class options available.
The Train Station
The Hyannis railroad station is right in the town center at the corner of Main and Center Streets (map), next to the Hyannis Transportation Center and within a few minutes' walk of downtown Hyannis.
You must have reservations to ride the trains, so call in advance.
Train + Harbor Cruise
By the way, if you'd like to take a Hyannis harbor cruise, Cape Cod Central Railroad has a package deal with Hy-Line Cruises: you get the 2-hour scenic train excursion and a harbor cruise at a discount. You needn't take both tours on the same day. More...
Cape Cod Central Railroad
252 Main Street (map)
Hyannis MA 02601
Tel toll-free: 888-797-7245
Kennedy Lore
The John F Kennedy Hyannis Museum, at 397 Main Street in the town center (map), is the most worthwhile "Kennedy site" in town. More...
Many visitors to Hyannis also stop to see the John F Kennedy Memorial, a stone monument bearing the presidential seal and a small fountain, on Ocean Street at Veterans Memorial Park (map).
You can also follow the Hyannis Kennedy Legacy Trail using your mobile phone as a guide. More...
Hyannis Port and the Kennedy compound, noted in news stories while the late President John F Kennedy and the late Senator Edward M Kennedy vacationed here, are west of Keyes (Sea Street) Beach and Ocean Avenue Beach. The Kennedy compound is not visible from the street and is not open to the public, so there's no point in going to look for it....by land.
But you can view the Kennedy Compound and much more on a Hyannis harbor cruise by day or at sunset. More...
Cape Cod Melody Tent
Big-name stars and bands are booked into the Cape Cod Melody Tent, at the West Main Street rotary (traffic circle) in Hyannis (tel 508-775-5630). The season goes from late June through early September, and runs the gamut.
Some visitors to Hyannis are on their way to or from Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. Ferryboats depart Hyannis's two docks for those islands. More...
Hyannis, the largest settlement on Cape Cod, has a great variety of hotels, motels, inns and bed-and-breakfast houses, some quite near the beaches.
Heritage House Hotel, Hyannis MA.
Hyannis has dozens of hotels, motels, inns and B&Bs in great variety. The most convenient are those close to the town center, on and off Main Street (map).
Hotel Map with Prices
Use this handy Hotel Map with Prices to see locations, room rates and availability. (Don't see the map? It's your ad-blocker. Click here instead!)
The 3-star, 142-room Heritage House Hotel, centrally located and convenient to everything, has 143 modern rooms, indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Right at the intersection of Main, Pleasant and Center streets (map), it's walking distance to Main Street's restaurants and shops, to the Pleasant Street and Ocean Street ferry docks, to the Hyannis Transportation Center and train station, and a 20-minute walk to the nearest beach. With parking so difficult in summer, this is a real convenience. More...
The 2-star, 18-room Cape Cod Harbor House Inn is, as its name implies, very near Hyannis Harbor, but it's also just a few blocks from the town center—a thrifty, well-located choice.
