Ah, for the summer days of high school! Doesn’t everyone want to be 17 again with nothing to do but hit the beach and make gas money at your part-time job?
I recently headed to my old stomping grounds in Westport, Connecticut not certain what I would find when I arrived. Pleasantly, I was surprised upon reaching Sherwood Island. Gone are the massive crowds and boom box 
radios; gone are the noisy neighbors who don’t respect your “beach space.” Instead, it was a very pleasant day on a relatively quiet beach. Maybe it is the current $15 car charge to enter the park but to me it was worth every penny.
Sherwood Island is a state park along the Long Island Sound. If you are looking for great big Atlantic Ocean waves – this is not it. But the water was amazingly clear and I could see right down to the seaweed and sharp rocks which unfortunately line this seabed. That’s Sherwood’s one drawback, the jagged shells and sharp rocks which are brutal on the feet. Bring swim-shoes and you’ll be just fine.
I left the island about 1pm on a Sunday afternoon and while the sunbathers and picnickers had arrived, it still wasn’t crowded, leaving me with the idea that I would return several more times this summer. It is a frugal one-tank daycation from New York and Hartford. It’ll take you about an hour from Manhattan until you arrive at Exit 18 on I-95 and about 90 minutes if you are coming down from Hartford in the north.
