Weekly note
Nantucket
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Photo by thisisbossi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Best time to visit Nantucket

United States · North America

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Nantucket

Tap a month for its page

  1. Nantucket in January: avoid
  2. Nantucket in February: avoid
  3. Nantucket in March: avoid
  4. Nantucket in April: ok
  5. Nantucket in May: sweet spot
  6. Nantucket in June: sweet spot, busy
  7. Nantucket in July: sweet spot, busy
  8. Nantucket in August: sweet spot, busy
  9. Nantucket in September: sweet spot, busy
  10. Nantucket in October: sweet spot
  11. Nantucket in November: ok
  12. Nantucket in December: ok
  • Sweet spot
  • Good
  • OK
  • Avoid
  • Busy
Go in May–Oct — these months score within a whisker of each other; 22C max, 5 rainy days. Apr is the next best.

Things to do in Nantucket

  • Sankaty Head Light Lighthouse on Nantucket island, Massachusetts, United States
  • Brant Point Light A short walk from the town center.
  • Nantucket Whaling Museum Museum in Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States
  • Great Point Light A lighthouse at the northern tip of the island, high above the beaches.
  • Miacomet Golf Course 18 holes, 6831 yds, Par 72, Rating 73, Slope 123.
  • Maria Mitchell Aquarium Near the Town Pier.

Tours and tickets in Nantucket

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Nantucket), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

MonthMax °CRain days HumiditySun h/day VerdictWhy
Jan 4° 10d 74% 5.8h avoid bitter cold: 4C daily max
Feb 4° 9d 75% 6.4h avoid bitter cold: 4C daily max
Mar 6° 9d 75% 8.0h avoid bitter cold: 6C daily max
Apr 9° 10d 79% 8.7h ok 9C max, 10 rainy days
May 13° 9d 84% 9.8h sweet spot 13C max, 9 rainy days
Jun 18° 7d 87% 11.5h sweet spot busy busier than usual
Jul 22° 6d 88% 11.5h sweet spot busy busier than usual
Aug 22° 5d 86% 11.1h sweet spot busy busier than usual
Sep 20° 7d 82% 9.1h sweet spot busy busier than usual
Oct 16° 9d 78% 7.9h sweet spot 16C max, 9 rainy days
Nov 12° 8d 71% 6.8h ok 12C max, 8 rainy days
Dec 7° 8d 73% 5.6h ok 7C max, 8 rainy days

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at Nantucket town: ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest from June to September; quietest from October to April.

Then and now

Nantucket's July days now average 21.8°C, 2.7°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 8 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
1981–903.9°3.6°4.7°7.4°10.9°15.3°19.1°20.0°18.0°14.3°11.0°6.6°
2017–264.3°4.3°5.8°9.0°12.7°17.6°21.8°22.3°19.9°16.4°11.6°7.1°
Change+0.5°+0.7°+1.2°+1.6°+1.8°+2.2°+2.7°+2.3°+1.8°+2.1°+0.6°+0.5°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

Fly into Boston (BOS), then drive. The flights under Where to book are to Boston.

Boston (BOS) the drive is not measured yet
Nantucket (ACK) the drive is not measured yet

The drive from each airport is the road's, from openrouteservice.org by HeiGIT: typical, not a schedule.

How far Nantucket is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type A and B plugs at 120 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the United states dollar. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for United States: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

  • Paying — Cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay work almost everywhere, though a few small places take cash only. Keep some $1 and $5 notes for tips; Venmo and PayPal are for locals.
  • UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
  • Tipping — Expected: 15–20% in sit-down restaurants (18–20% is standard in New York) and 10–20% for taxi, Uber and Lyft drivers. Large groups may find it already on the bill.

Getting around Nantucket

  • Apps — Rides: Lyft, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: Text messages (SMS), WhatsApp. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and some other cities you can also book a driverless Waymo in its own app.

Nantucket Regional Transit Authority (NRTA), East Chestnut Street. NRTA operates shuttle service known as "The Wave". More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Nantucket, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

  • Emergency — 911 (any emergency).
    TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (50)

Nantucket in pictures

What Nantucket is like

Nantucket is an island and town 30 mi (48 km) off the coast of Cape Cod and part of Massachusetts. The island offers quiet harbors, dramatic cliffs, sandy beaches, lighthouses, beautiful old mansions and gardens, interesting history – even a series of (sometimes bawdy) limericks about its residents. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing
The island's long and rich history led the National Park Service to declare the entire island a National Historic District. More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing
The Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, Centre St. Methodist Church, +1 508-228-4305 (General Info), +1 508-228-4305 (Box Office). Miacomet Golf Course, West Miacomet Rd. 18 holes, 6831 yds, Par 72, Rating 73, Slope 123. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in
Part of the island's appeal is its isolation; "Nantucket" is a Native American word that translates into "faraway island" or "land far out to sea." You can reach the island either by boat or plane. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Nantucket, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Nantucket

Also in United States

Nearby

Kind of place

Nantucket is in United States, North America. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book through one, at no extra cost to you. That does not affect the scores on this page, which are computed from climate and fare data before any link is built.