[Noah930]

Mrs. Noah is from Cape Cod. We lived there for a year and go back every year to visit family. Hope you have a fantastic time, as I think it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever had the privilege to visit. No offense to those who do so for a living, but a blind man could make a living taking postcard photos on the Cape.

To visit the Islands (Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard), most take the ferry. If you want to visit Nantucket, you have to leave from Hyannis. To get to the Vineyard, you can leave from either Hyannis or Woods Hole. If you haven't booked a car reservation by now, it may be difficult to obtain space. As it's still within the summer season, there are busses that run around the islands. (The busses stop after roughly Memorial Day, IIRC.) The times we've gone to Nantucket in the past, we just took cabs or bicycles to get around the island. Being locals we brought our own bikes, but certainly you can rent once off the ferry. There are long-term lots in Hyannis and Woods Hole to keep your car while you're visiting the Islands.

Lots of beautiful places and villages to visit and spend some time in on the Cape, too: Woods Hole, the kitchiness of Rte 28 along the Atlantic side vs the New Englandness of 6A along the north side of the Cape, Chatham, Wellfleet, Provincetown, the wide expanse of sandy tide pools along the northern Cape Cod Bay side of the Cape, Cape Cod National Seashore.

I'd keep close to the speed limit while driving on the main/only highway on Cape Cod. Staties love to hide at a couple particular spots and write tickets.

edit: I've never been to the Vineyard, but have gone to Nantucket a couple times. Both times we stayed for a few nights at friend's vacation house. While it's nice to be able to enjoy an evening without having to worry about rushing back on a ferry, Nantucket's ridiculously expensive and I don't know if it necessarily offers anything I can't really find on the Cape. However, it was nice to ride bikes over to Siaconset, buy sandwiches in the general store there, and spend a day at the sparsely populated but beautiful sandy beach. However, you can do similar on the Cape (just with more people around) for less $. (i.e. Buy sandwiches at Fancy's in Osterville or at the Dennis Public Market, then go spend a day out at Sandy Neck in Dennis.) You can certainly day-trip Nantucket by spending most of your time in town. As I wrote, I haven't visited the Vineyard, but Mrs. Noah likes it more (less hoity toity), particularly Edgartown. My kids took a sailboat with Mrs. Noah's uncle this summer from Woods Hole to the Vineyard one afternoon just to get ice cream, then came back the same afternoon.