Nantucket County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Nantucket County

An island bylaw passed in town meeting prohibits any vehicle from sleeping overnight in any public space on Nantucket — making the county the only US county to ban overnight RV camping entirely, with zero public or private RV-friendly campgrounds across the 45-sq-mi island and a Steamship Authority ferry that caps RV transport at 23 ft length per the same bylaw. The prohibition is enforced summer-season by Nantucket Police with $100 first-offense tickets and tow-zone removal for repeat violations. Practical visitor logistics route through Hyannis on Cape Cod: the Steamship Authority's fast ferry runs the 30-mile crossing in roughly 60 minutes (the traditional ferry runs 2 hours each way), and Hyannis-area campgrounds on Cape Cod take the rig while the visitor day-trips by ferry.

Nantucket's economy was built on the 18th-19th century sperm-whale fishery — at peak in the 1840s the island's whaling fleet was the third-largest in the world, with 88 ships flying the Nantucket port-of-registry flag, and the lamp-oil supply they delivered lit New York, Philadelphia, London, and the British naval lanterns at Trafalgar. The Nantucket Whaling Museum on Broad Street holds the largest collection of 18th-19th-century whaling-industry artifacts in the world, including the 46-ft sperm-whale skeleton recovered from a 1998 island beaching, original tools, scrimshaw, and full-size whaleboat reproductions. The 1846 Great Fire destroyed most of the original wooden waterfront; the post-fire brick reconstruction along Main Street is the largest intact mid-19th-century commercial streetscape in New England. Off-season (October-May) the year-round population drops below 14,000 and most retail closes.