As a child, I was trained to be a serious beacher. My family shares a house on Cape Cod, and ever since I’ve formed memories, our beach days have looked exactly the same. We spend an hour of pure chaos (lots of yelling at children to go outside and get out of the way!!!!!) compiling our entire lives into coolers and bags before tromping down to the beach and proceeding to spend the entire day there. Occasionally people run back to the house for bathroom breaks, but generally speaking, it was and is unheard of for people in my family to leave the beach any earlier than 5PM.
For most of my life, I assumed EVERYONE does the beach this way—the all or nothing approach—but have realized it’s not the case! For example, I was shocked when friends joined us at the house a few years back and simply went back to the house for lunch instead of eating beach sandwiches. Or when someone would say they had “had enough” of the beach for a bit and returned to the house mid afternoon. Brett often says he’s “done” with the beach after our week there, a sentiment I can not relate to.
This is all to say that I consider myself an expert at longterm beaching. WhenVirginia Sole-Smith texted me about my Cape suggestions (she has a delightful roundup of beach stuff herself), I provided several tips, most of which felt obvious to me but Virginia said they were not. AND SO.
Here is my grand compendium of products and tips to make a marathon beach day both tenable AND enjoyable.
