Tag Archives: bike

Destination: Provincetown, MA

The whole reason for having the bus and making it into an RV is to use it!  My wife used to go to Cape Cod for vacations as a girl, and thus, one of the places we want to go is:

The official site of Provincetown, MA
The official site of Provincetown, MA

Provincetown is on the far eastern ‘hook’ of  Massachusetts, forming Cape Cod Bay.

Cape Cod from all the way up in the air.

Being a relatively narrow, sandy area, there is tons of salt water around you, one way or another.  Provincetown is home to a number of historic sites, including the Pilgrim’s First Landing site

The Pilgrim Monument, before the town grew around it

and the Pilgrim Monument (at 252 feet tall, it is the tallest all-granite structure in the United States, and you can climb the stairs up!) and the nearby Race Point Light Station (which has two small buildings you can rent as cabins) and the  Highland Light Station (established in 1797!),   but is a thriving Arts community all on it’s own.

Highland Light Station

The area is supposed to be great for biking, the town having bike lanes and bike routes that connect with the bike trails in the Cape Cod National Seashore, so we’ll be trowing our bikes in the bus when we go.  (It will also make a lot more sense to bring the bikes to travel in the quaint LITTLE streets than to try and maneuver the bus there!)

Provincetown itself

For RV’s, there’s a nice looking place right to the north of Provincetown called the Dune’s Edge,  right on the edge of the Cape Cod National Seashore, and just down the road (before the Highland Light Station) is a place called the North of Highland Camping Area,  but neither of these have parking for anything bigger than 20′ or 30′, so our bus won’t fit. So just down a little farther is the Adventure Bound Camping Resorts, which are more densely packed than we might want, but will fit our bus.

There’s also the possibility of bringing the canoe.  There is a public launch right in Provincetown, the West End Boat Parking Lot/Boat Ramp, but from the Google Maps view, all the spaces look like single car spaces.  To the south, though, is the Wellfleet Pier Boat Ramp, which has parking for larger vehicles, and as far as I can see, seems to be free to park at.  This would give us some nice access to the inner cape, though some 20 miles of canoeing from Provincetown.  Still what we want to do is get out and explore and enjoy, so that’s fine.

Distance for us (from Google Maps): ~556 miles (shortest driving distance) / ~8 hours 30 minutes speed limit time (~9 hours 15minutes bus speed time)