The 10 Best Day Trips from Watch Hill, RI

The default Watch Hill day trip and for good reason. Mystic is partly in Stonington, partly in Groton, and entirely worth a full day. The Mystic Seaport Museum recreates a 19th-century whaling village with active shipwrights and historic vessels you can board. The Mystic Aquarium is one of the best in the Northeast — particularly for kids — with beluga whales, sea lions, and an actual Steller sea lion exhibit. Downtown Mystic has its own walkable charm with restaurants, galleries, and the iconic counterweighted drawbridge.

What Watch Hill might look like with even fewer tourists. A perfectly preserved 18th-century fishing village on a narrow peninsula, with a tight grid of historic homes, a working commercial fishing fleet, and a lighthouse museum at the southern tip. Two hours is enough to walk it end-to-end. Add a long lunch on Water Street and it's a half-day.

A small island off the coast of Rhode Island, accessible by ferry from Pawcatuck (the high-speed Block Island Ferry from Westerly's Pawcatuck ferry terminal cuts the trip to about 30 minutes one-way). Block Island is biking territory — rent bikes off the ferry and you can see the whole island in a day. Mohegan Bluffs is the headline attraction: 200-foot clay cliffs with a long staircase down to the beach. The Southeast Lighthouse sits at the top.

An hour east on coastal Route 1 then up I-95, Newport is the headline destination of Rhode Island tourism. The Gilded Age mansions — The Breakers, Marble House, Rosecliff — are genuinely worth the visit for anyone interested in American social history. The 3.5-mile Cliff Walk threads behind them along the ocean. Downtown Newport has a working sailing harbor, a serious restaurant scene, and more bars than Watch Hill has total businesses.

Twenty minutes north of Mystic on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation, Foxwoods is one of the largest casinos in the Western Hemisphere. The casino itself is the obvious draw, but there's also a Native American history museum on-site (genuinely good), several headlining concert venues, multiple restaurants, an outlet mall, and a Lake Of Isles golf course. Even if you don't gamble, it's a destination for concerts and meals.

Rhode Island's capital is a quietly excellent small city — walkable, with Brown and RISD as cultural anchors. Federal Hill has some of the best Italian restaurants in New England. The RISD Museum is a small but genuinely world-class art museum. The Providence Athenaeum, a 19th-century subscription library where Edgar Allan Poe courted Sarah Helen Whitman, is open to the public. A perfect rainy-day or off-season day trip.

Twenty minutes east, Charlestown has some of the best undeveloped beaches in Rhode Island. Blue Shutters Town Beach and East Beach (a different East Beach than Watch Hill's) face the open Atlantic with miles of dunes and no commercial development. The Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge sits inland — 858 acres of restored salt ponds with hiking trails and active birding. This is the day trip for people who want the beach without the village.

Past Mystic on I-95, New London is a working Connecticut port city — home to the Coast Guard Academy, a busy ferry terminal, and Ocean Beach Park. Old Lyme, just across the Connecticut River, has the Florence Griswold Museum — the birthplace of American Impressionism, in the house where artists like Childe Hassam summered. A more historically interesting day trip than the obvious picks.

An offbeat option locals love: New England Airlines flies from Westerly State Airport (WST) to Block Island State Airport (BID) every two hours in season. The flight itself is about twelve minutes and the view from the small plane over Block Island Sound is spectacular. Total cost is roughly $80 round-trip — comparable to the ferry, faster, and significantly more memorable.

Connecticut has a real wine country — there are about 40 wineries in the state — and the closest serious one is Stonington Vineyards, fifteen minutes inland from the borough. Lawn tastings, a summer music series, and an annual Harvest Food & Wine Festival. Within a half-hour drive you can visit three or four more wineries and make a real day of it. Designate a driver.