Martha’s Vineyard: Ferrying Over and a Ride on Rental Bikes

Living in Greater Boston, we’d meant to visit Martha’s Vineyard for some time, but kept putting it off. We finally visited for a few days last July. Here, we will share about a bike ride (roughly 20 miles) that my 16 year old and I did as part of the trip on our first full day there.

Logistics

While Martha’s Vineyard has an upscale image, for folks coming from New England, it’s not super hard or expensive to get to Martha’s Vineyard – round trip pedestrian ferry tickets from Woods Hole are only $21/adult. Though we opted for the $30/adult ferry from Falmouth, since parking there was easier. Either ferry takes about 45 minutes. And the ferry terminals are just over an hour’s drive from Boston. There are other ferries as well, e.g. from Hyannis on the Cape, or from New Bedford.

Those fares do not include a vehicle. Taking a vehicle in the summer requires significant advance reservations (i.e. 6 months in advance). And honestly, you should avoid bringing a vehicle without a good reason; we found it mostly reasonable for us to get around this small island by bus, Uber, and walking.

Otherwise, there are nonstop flights from places like Boston, New York, Philly, or DC. But our specific experience here is a relatively simple local drive + ferry.

We stayed a few nights in Oak Bluffs, which has frequent ferries and plenty of restaurants. We liked it somewhat more than, say, Vineyard Haven (AKA Tisbury). But if we came again, we might consider staying in Edgartown, which felt slightly cuter – and was the main backdrop for the town from the movie “Jaws.”

For somebody with an early start and plenty of energy, it is totally possible to get a glimpse of the island as a day trip from Boston or the Cape, including the bike ride here. For example, one might take the 8:15am ferry there, and perhaps the 5pm or 7:15pm ferry back (but check the current schedules!).

Also, for the record, Martha’s Vineyard is a very seasonal destination – best (though busy) during the summer, and fairly quiet during the winter, with many amenities closed. Its summer population is 200,000 folks, compared with 23,000 during the winter.

Renting our Bikes, Planning our Route

We rented bikes from near the Oak Bluffs ferry terminal at All Star Bike Rentals (not sponsored, but we liked them). The cost was $30 for the day for a hybrid bike. They helpfully had a bike map outside their store, to understand typical trails:

For the majority of casual bikers, it’s common to:

Bike from Oak Bluffs to Edgartown (6 miles, or 30 minutes) and explore.
Potentially, continue to Katama/South Beach (another 3.3 miles or 15 minutes).
And then do that in reverse, with some lunch and beach lounging in there.

FYI, there aren’t any restaurants near Katama/South Beach, but there are plenty in Edgartown.

Biking to the west side of the island is possible, but much more hilly. Before we returned our bikes, we also biked out to Vineyard Haven/Tisbury, but didn’t find it as interesting as either Edgarton or Oak Bluffs.

To Edgartown

After getting our bikes, the route out of town towards Edgartown was fairly straightforward. At the edge of town, there was a separate bike trail, where we were biked along a small lake.

One thing that struck me, having previously visited islands that are quite dry (e.g. Maui or Santorini), was how relatively green and lush Martha’s Vineyard was. That and its New England vibe (these are from other parts of the island).

Along the route is the “Jaws Bridge,” from the scene in that movie. Since my son heard it was apparently a tradition to jump, he opted to do so. Note that this is technically not legal (with a posted sign saying so), even as we saw lines of folks jumping later in the trip. He mentioned that the jump is higher than it looks. (Also, we later learned that, alas, there was a fatal incident in 2022 due to undercurrents, so stay safe!).

From there, we continued the 30 minute bike ride to Edgartown. We locked up our bikes and wandered for a little while, as there were plenty of small shops. While we didn’t get many pictures of the town, we did walk out to the light house and take a picture there:

Katama/South Beach and Back

After a while, we picked up some extra water, and continued our way to Katama/South Beach, which was roughly another 15 minutes of biking. The route there was pretty, we also saw a big estate with llamas on it along the way.

The beach itself was probably the nicest beach was saw over the next few days, with one section for surfing and another section for family swim. We spent a little while there. When it became time for a late lunch, we got back on our bikes towards Edgartown. That was a good place to have a lunch with a sea view.

When we were there, it was the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws being released. So we saw, then, and over the weekend, references to Jaws and “Amity Island” (its name from the movie). Edgartown was where most of the town scenes were filmed.

In any case, we biked back to Oak Bluffs, and rested for about an hour.

We did bike a bit more after that, swinging by Vineyard Haven/Tisbury before returning our bikes. That said, it wasn’t super necessary, I think the part above from just Oak Bluffs to Edgartown and Katama/South Beach was the best part.

In any case, we didn’t get quite enough photos to post about the rest in detail, but we enjoyed our short summer visit!