Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 25, 1993 TAG: 9304230455
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: F-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEANNE LEBLANC and DON STACOM
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
So much for saving money by vacationing inside the country. It's enough to send you packing for a cheaper trip to the Caribbean.
But if you run for your passport, you'll miss the grandest ocean beaches in the Northeast and a purely American combination of kitsch, history and nature. Besides, a well-planned vacation on the cape can skirt those high prices.
For nearly 300 years, farming and fishing were the only uses anyone could find for Cape Cod, which protrudes into the Atlantic from the body of southern Massachusetts like an arm bent at the elbow. Those activities took place largely on the bay side, leaving the Atlantic shore vacant for the overwhelming tourist development that came in the past century.
The government spared a big chunk of it by creating Cape Cod National Seashore, which sweeps 40 miles down the long, curved forearm. That's the nature part, vast and clean, a big sandbar on an endless ocean.
Tourism has touched the bay side lightly and the villages retain a Colonial atmosphere. Restored grist mills and windmills, small inns and bicycle paths preserve nature and history, despite the occasional tourist trap.
But the Atlantic shore below the national seashore is jammed with family motels, family restaurants, miniature golf courses, ice-cream stands and lobster shacks.
The cape's year-round population of 180,000 balloons to an estimated 500,000 during the summer, and most of those are families that arrive by car. Aside from the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Cape Cod never has been much for the rich-and-famous crowd. It's a middle-class, family place, opened up to tourism by that great democratizer, the automobile.
Sure, the prices of oceanfront rooms zoom upward in July and August. But prices are lower away from the shore and dramatic bargains are available during the rest of the year.
It's not difficult to afford the cape if you now how to:\
Save on hotels
The room at a highway motel on Route 28 in Yarmouth that goes for $62 a night during July and August will cost $21 a night or less midweek before June 15. The rates rise in several increments through early summer, hold a peak through July and August and drop again after Labor Day. During the off season, some hotels also advertise package deals with a third or fourth night free.
The pricier beach hotels also offer deals, although the rate structures are complicated enough to make an airline envious. Is that an ocean-view room on the courtyard midweek during the late fall season or an ocean-front room at the weekend holiday rate during early fall? It makes a lot of difference.
One beach hotel lets the $195 ocean-front room go for $115 until the middle of May and $155 until mid-June. The hotel's cheapest room (no ocean view) goes for $119 during the high season, $64 through mid-May, $79 through mid-June and $97 through the end of June.
Most hotels offer the same rates in spring and fall, but a few beach hotels are more expensive after Labor Day than before Memorial Day. The water is warmer in the fall than the spring, and they know it.
If the motel rates blow your budget, there's an even cheaper alternative. Three state campgrounds - Scusset State Beach and Shawme-Crowell State Forest in Sandwich and Nickerson State Park in Brewster - offer tent sites for $12 a night. They don't take reservations, but it's wise to call ahead because their seasons and amenities vary.
Sites are hard to get even in midweek during the high season, so many people set up camp at one of more than a dozen private campgrounds and then line up at a state park in the morning to grab a site as the occupants leave. Rates tend to be higher at the private campgrounds and the sites are often crowded closer together, but even at $20 a night they're a bargain.\
Save on meals
Many restaurants offer early-bird dinners all year, taking $2 off the entree prices between 4 and 6 p.m. So it's possible to get a small loster or prime rib for $9. Some of these deals are available to whoever walks through the door; others require a coupon from one of the tourist guides that are splattered around motels and tourist booths all over the cape.
Waterfront restaurants generally don't offer such deals. You pay for the view, no matter when you get it.
Massachusetts 28 in Hyannis and Yarmouth is the fast-food drag. Prices are about the same as they are anywhere else, and the atmosphere meets the universal standards, even if the McDonald's in South Yarmouth is painted in a seashore shade of weathered gray.\
Save on beaches
The closest beach to your hotel probably won't be a bargain. The towns reserve their beaches for their residents by charging up to $10 for a day's parking and $20 or more for a weekly permit. They generally don't charge anything before Memorial Day or after Labor Day, though.
The best beach is the Cape Cod National Seashore, with parking available for $5 a day or $15 for the season in six parking lots off Massachusetts 6. Parking is free before the last weekend in June and after Labor Day, and the beach is open from 6 a.m. to midnight. The lots are often full by 10 a.m. on clear summer days, so go early or after 3 p.m., when people are starting back.
If you go during the off-season, remember that Cape Cod beaches have dunes that will block the wind. You can spread a blanket in the valleys and get a suntan as early as April or as late as October.\
Save on attractions
Almost every town has a Chamber of Commerce office loaded with brochures, coupon books and tourist guides. The coupons offer discounts on every imaginable activity. Hotels and motels generally have a less inclusive rack of brochures.
One recent guide carried coupons for 50 cents off a pound of fudge, $3 off a ferry ride to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket, $2 off any of several whale-watching cruises, 50 cents to $1 off games at several miniature golf courses, $2 off film processing, $1 off a ride on the Cape Cod Scenic Railroad and dozens of other discounts.
But don't assume coupons will always get you the best deal. Shop for prices. Rates at one bicycle-rental shop may be twice as high as the rates at a shop down the street.\ Save on general expenses
For more information on Cape Cod contact the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, Route 6, Hyannis, MA, 02601, or the Division of Tourism, Massachusetts Department of Commerce and Development, 100 Cambridge St. Boston, MA 02202.
Jeanne Leblanc and Don Stacom are free-lance travel writers and photographers who live in Burlington, Conn.
by CNB