How best to go from Boston to Cape Cod?
August 30, 2010 3:25 PM Subscribe
I need to get from Logan Airport in Boston to Eastham, MA (outer Cape Cod) on Friday, September 3. What's the best way to do it?
I'm landing at Logan at about 1:15 PM on Friday and I need to get to Eastham (on the outer Cape) by bus/shuttle/whatever. I keep hearing that there are a lot of buses and other shuttle options to get out to the Cape but I'm having a hard time finding one that will work. P & B offers a bus from Logan Airport but the travel time is over four hours, from what I can tell. I feel like I'm missing some obvious, low-hassle solution.
I know it's Labor Day Weekend which is probably a terrible time to travel to the Cape, but the timing of the trip wasn't up to me (my family is meeting up to scatter the ashes of some loved ones and this is the only time we could all make it).
I'd prefer to travel quickly rather than cheaply, within reason.
I'm landing at Logan at about 1:15 PM on Friday and I need to get to Eastham (on the outer Cape) by bus/shuttle/whatever. I keep hearing that there are a lot of buses and other shuttle options to get out to the Cape but I'm having a hard time finding one that will work. P & B offers a bus from Logan Airport but the travel time is over four hours, from what I can tell. I feel like I'm missing some obvious, low-hassle solution.
I know it's Labor Day Weekend which is probably a terrible time to travel to the Cape, but the timing of the trip wasn't up to me (my family is meeting up to scatter the ashes of some loved ones and this is the only time we could all make it).
I'd prefer to travel quickly rather than cheaply, within reason.
Best answer: Cape Air flies from Logan to Provincetown for probably about $100 one-way. On a Friday, the traffic on Route 6A the way you're going should be negligible compared to the other direction.
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 3:39 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 3:39 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
Sorry, I forgot the part where you have to get from Provincetown to Eastham. Maybe somebody can pick you up in Ptown?
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 3:40 PM on August 30, 2010
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 3:40 PM on August 30, 2010
Best answer: The P&B is more like three hours and that may even be optimistic. There are a lot of weird options.
- Hospital Shuttle from Bay Area hospitals. Comfy, but once a day. That said, it's at 3. Might work perfectly for you. You'd have to get to a hospital, and I'm not sure which one is easiest to get to.
- Ferry to Provincetown [other option] is 90 minutes, but then you're still 20 miles away. You could then take this bus, but by then really you're better off having taken the P&B
- Cape Air will get you there quickly for about $75, but again "there" is Provincetown and then you're busing or cabbing it to Eastham.
If you have any flexibility with family members already there, you might want to see about a ride from Provincetown or renting a car there [as opposed to Boston] if no one's going to have cars there, but that is likely to be expensive.
posted by jessamyn at 3:46 PM on August 30, 2010
- Hospital Shuttle from Bay Area hospitals. Comfy, but once a day. That said, it's at 3. Might work perfectly for you. You'd have to get to a hospital, and I'm not sure which one is easiest to get to.
- Ferry to Provincetown [other option] is 90 minutes, but then you're still 20 miles away. You could then take this bus, but by then really you're better off having taken the P&B
- Cape Air will get you there quickly for about $75, but again "there" is Provincetown and then you're busing or cabbing it to Eastham.
If you have any flexibility with family members already there, you might want to see about a ride from Provincetown or renting a car there [as opposed to Boston] if no one's going to have cars there, but that is likely to be expensive.
posted by jessamyn at 3:46 PM on August 30, 2010
If you can get picked up from Ptown, I second the ferry, if you have never faced the traffic onto the Cape, you will be so glad that you don't have to do this on Labor Day weekend! It's absolutely miserable.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 3:48 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by treehorn+bunny at 3:48 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
There are local buses from Provincetown to Eastham (check out http://www.capecodtransit.org/). To get to P'town from Logan you can fly or take the ferry - take the MBTA blue line from Logan to Aquarium, the ferry leaves from Long Wharf right near the Aquarium).
You can definitely get a bus from Logan to Hyannis and then on from Hyannis to Eastham (Plymouth and Brockton bus line, I think). But you will be stuck in traffic, on the bus, for many hours. I haven't taken P&B buses so I don't know how bad that would be. The P'town ferry is nice, though. Sometimes you see whales. Sometimes it's rough and you get seasick.
posted by mskyle at 3:48 PM on August 30, 2010
You can definitely get a bus from Logan to Hyannis and then on from Hyannis to Eastham (Plymouth and Brockton bus line, I think). But you will be stuck in traffic, on the bus, for many hours. I haven't taken P&B buses so I don't know how bad that would be. The P'town ferry is nice, though. Sometimes you see whales. Sometimes it's rough and you get seasick.
posted by mskyle at 3:48 PM on August 30, 2010
On review: if you try the hospital route, Mass General and Tufts NEMC are the easiest to get to from the airport. And they have their own subway stops, even.
posted by mskyle at 3:51 PM on August 30, 2010
posted by mskyle at 3:51 PM on August 30, 2010
I wish there was some magic solution for Cape Cod travel. But even though longtime Cape residents joke wistfully about the secret tunnel, there's no avoiding it: Friday on-Cape traffic in the summer is brutal. If you're going by land, you're going to have to resign yourself to having it take a while. It may be even worse if the weather holds up like it's supposed to -- warm sunny weather makes people leave even earlier on Friday (ironically, to be the traffic). All the weekenders will be going in your direction, and the long-weekend traffic is always worse.
Route 3 will be slowing by the time you get on the road, and the backup over the Sagamore could go for miles. Route 6 will be slow, and will be stop and go from at least exit 9 (where it merges down to one lane) all the way to Eastham. On busy traffic days, the merging of the two lanes can have traffice bottled up to Rte 7 or more. That'd be 20 miles or so of bumper to bumper traffic. 4 hours from Boston to Eastham on the Friday afternoon of Labor Day weekend sounds optimistic to me.
No, if you're going by land, it seems like the only solution is to rent a car. If you me-mail me, I can give you some tricks for getting around the route 3 bridge bottleneck, as well as some advice about better/worse back roads on the Cape, but I'm not posting those for the whole internet to see -- I wouldn't be welcome back on Cape anymore if I did, you see. Even with all my tricks, it won't be a fast or pleasant journey.
I've never taken the Provincetown Ferry, but that'd be an option for you. You'd need to take a cab or the T from Logan to the ferry. If you don't have a lot of baggage, the T would be much cheaper, and there's got to be some MeFites who can talk you step-by-step through the subway directions (if you're worried about that).
There's also Cape Air, which could fly you to Provincetown (closer to Eastham) or Hyannis (sometimes easier to get to). For both the ferry or airplane, you're not quite in your destination town. At this point, it'd be easier if someone could pick you up. If that's an impossibility, you could give the local buses (run by the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority) a try. I've never used them, but I see them everywhere.
posted by .kobayashi. at 3:59 PM on August 30, 2010
Route 3 will be slowing by the time you get on the road, and the backup over the Sagamore could go for miles. Route 6 will be slow, and will be stop and go from at least exit 9 (where it merges down to one lane) all the way to Eastham. On busy traffic days, the merging of the two lanes can have traffice bottled up to Rte 7 or more. That'd be 20 miles or so of bumper to bumper traffic. 4 hours from Boston to Eastham on the Friday afternoon of Labor Day weekend sounds optimistic to me.
No, if you're going by land, it seems like the only solution is to rent a car. If you me-mail me, I can give you some tricks for getting around the route 3 bridge bottleneck, as well as some advice about better/worse back roads on the Cape, but I'm not posting those for the whole internet to see -- I wouldn't be welcome back on Cape anymore if I did, you see. Even with all my tricks, it won't be a fast or pleasant journey.
I've never taken the Provincetown Ferry, but that'd be an option for you. You'd need to take a cab or the T from Logan to the ferry. If you don't have a lot of baggage, the T would be much cheaper, and there's got to be some MeFites who can talk you step-by-step through the subway directions (if you're worried about that).
There's also Cape Air, which could fly you to Provincetown (closer to Eastham) or Hyannis (sometimes easier to get to). For both the ferry or airplane, you're not quite in your destination town. At this point, it'd be easier if someone could pick you up. If that's an impossibility, you could give the local buses (run by the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority) a try. I've never used them, but I see them everywhere.
posted by .kobayashi. at 3:59 PM on August 30, 2010
Response by poster: Cape Air sounds like a great option, and it's one I hadn't considered. (I assumed flying would be too pricey.) The fares I'm seeing for Friday morning are $144, which, considering that I'll be on the Cape in 30 minutes rather than 3-4 hours seems well worth it. Thanks for all the thoughtful and helpful replies.
posted by kate blank at 4:59 PM on August 30, 2010
posted by kate blank at 4:59 PM on August 30, 2010
FYI - Hurricane Earl is expected to make landfall in or around Massachusetts or New York on Friday. Weather forecasts can change a lot in a week, but you should keep a sharp eye on this. You may not be traveling anywhere that day if there's a category 3 hurricane crossing the area.
posted by fremen at 5:05 PM on August 30, 2010
posted by fremen at 5:05 PM on August 30, 2010
I believe Cape Air (or one of the smaller airlines) does flights under Jetblue if you want to use them for points reasons.
posted by clango at 6:31 PM on August 30, 2010
posted by clango at 6:31 PM on August 30, 2010
(JetBlue code-shares with Cape Air but only when connecting through Logan, they don't sell Boston-Provincetown.)
Cape Air to Provincetown is just 20 min in the air, but you have to get into Logan and go through security. You can rent a car from Enterprise at the airport and drive to Eastham in about 30 minutes; even on Labor Day weekend, traffic going up-Cape isn't too bad.
posted by nicwolff at 6:45 PM on August 30, 2010
Cape Air to Provincetown is just 20 min in the air, but you have to get into Logan and go through security. You can rent a car from Enterprise at the airport and drive to Eastham in about 30 minutes; even on Labor Day weekend, traffic going up-Cape isn't too bad.
posted by nicwolff at 6:45 PM on August 30, 2010
Response by poster: nicwolff, I'm flying into Boston (from Toronto).
posted by kate blank at 6:53 PM on August 30, 2010
posted by kate blank at 6:53 PM on August 30, 2010
Eastham, by highway, is a little more than 90 miles from Logan Airport. If you can make that in 30 minutes by car, I'd sure like to know how.
posted by .kobayashi. at 6:55 PM on August 30, 2010
posted by .kobayashi. at 6:55 PM on August 30, 2010
I meant you can rent a car at Provincetown Airport after flying over, and it's about 30 min from P-town to Eastham. Sorry for the confusion: "up-Cape" means up the peninsula, toward the mainland.
kate: Don't speed in Eastham! They're notorious. Provincetown: 65; Truro and Wellfleet: 55; Eastham, 45.
posted by nicwolff at 8:59 PM on August 30, 2010
kate: Don't speed in Eastham! They're notorious. Provincetown: 65; Truro and Wellfleet: 55; Eastham, 45.
posted by nicwolff at 8:59 PM on August 30, 2010
Ah, that makes much more sense; I had read it like you were suggesting two different options, one of which seemed superhuman. It's been a long day.
posted by .kobayashi. at 9:02 PM on August 30, 2010
posted by .kobayashi. at 9:02 PM on August 30, 2010
My mom lives in Wellfleet and I have made this trip many times. The last time I was out there was Easter weekend. I had almost no difficulty getting out, the usual 2 hours or so, but coming back I had the worst traffic I have ever experienced and missed my flight at Logan. It was over 4 hours! This was due to construction on the Bourne Bridge which went down to one lane.
I have no idea if that construction is still going on, but that was a killer.
Cape Air is the best solution for hassle free travel from Logan to P-Town for sure. The Ferry is the most relaxing, but you are dependent upon their schedule (as you are with Cape Air, but I think there are more options)
And yes, you then have to get from P-Town to Eastham, but what a joyus ride that is!
I think my mom knows some people that will give you a ride for a fee, if you need more help in that area let me know.
Henry
posted by silsurf at 6:02 AM on August 31, 2010
I have no idea if that construction is still going on, but that was a killer.
Cape Air is the best solution for hassle free travel from Logan to P-Town for sure. The Ferry is the most relaxing, but you are dependent upon their schedule (as you are with Cape Air, but I think there are more options)
And yes, you then have to get from P-Town to Eastham, but what a joyus ride that is!
I think my mom knows some people that will give you a ride for a fee, if you need more help in that area let me know.
Henry
posted by silsurf at 6:02 AM on August 31, 2010
Response by poster: I booked a Cape Air ticket from Boston to Providence and I've got someone to pick me up and take me to Eastham -- thanks again for the great answers!
posted by kate blank at 7:10 PM on August 31, 2010
posted by kate blank at 7:10 PM on August 31, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by eisenkr at 3:34 PM on August 30, 2010