Plan Your Rhode Island Getaway

Plan Your Rhode Island Getaway

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the country, and it spends that fact like a compliment. There are 400 miles of coastline packed into 1,214 square miles, which means wherever you stand in the Ocean State, the water is a half-hour drive away at most. That density is the whole appeal. You can eat breakfast in Providence, spend the afternoon on Block Island, and be back for the evening with time to spare.

Narragansett and Newport Rhode Island 3-D nautical wood chart, showing the bay and its islands carved in layered birch

A state founded by an exile

Rhode Island began with a disagreement. Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 for arguing, among other things, that church and state should be kept apart. He walked south, bought land from the Narragansett, and named the settlement Providence for the mercy he felt had guided him there. It is the state capital now, and the streak of independence that started it never really faded.

On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island became the first of the thirteen colonies to formally renounce its allegiance to the British crown, two full months ahead of the Declaration in Philadelphia. The state has kept close to that history since. Walking tours, restored mansions, and colonial waterfronts are easy to find, and most of them come with a view of the same water Williams arrived on.

Three things to eat before you leave

Rhode Island calls itself Little Rhody, and a few local staples do more to explain the place than any brochure. Order all three and you will understand the state better than a map alone can teach you.

Coffee milk

Coffee milk is the official state beverage, and yes, that is a real thing a state can have. It is milk stirred with coffee syrup, and Autocrat has been making that syrup since the 1930s. For decades it was the only coffee syrup manufacturer in the entire country. Rhode Islanders drink it the way other places drink chocolate milk, without a hint of irony.

Hot wieners

The hot wiener is to Rhode Island what the cheesesteak is to Philadelphia, a small food carrying a lot of civic pride. Order it "all the way" and you get a steamed bun, the wiener, mustard, meat sauce, chopped onion, and a dusting of celery salt. The place to start is Olneyville New York System, which locals treat as the original and the standard.

Del's frozen lemonade

Franco DeLucia brought his father's frozen lemonade recipe over from Italy and opened a stand in Cranston in 1840. Del's is a lemon slush, tart and barely sweet, and from April through October you will find the mobile stands parked wherever there is a crowd and sun. It is the taste most Rhode Islanders reach for when they describe summer.

Block Island Rhode Island 3-D nautical wood chart, tracing the island's shoreline and the depths of the surrounding Sound

Where to stay on the water

Because the coast is never far, most stays come with a view. Newport leans grand and historic, Providence leans downtown and lively, and Block Island leans quiet. These five cover the range:

Where to eat

Rhode Island punches far above its size at the dinner table, and there is a reason. Johnson & Wales University, the largest food-service educator in the world, has campuses across the state, and its graduates keep opening restaurants faster than most cities can. That talent pool shows up on the plate. A few reliable tables:

Block Island cribbage board carved in wood in the shape of the island, with pegging holes following the coastline

What to do

The trouble with Rhode Island is not finding something to do, it is fitting it all into one trip. Newport alone could hold you for days. These five are the ones worth building a day around:

  • Tour The Breakers, the Vanderbilts' seventy-room Gilded Age summer "cottage."
  • Walk the Cliff Walk, three and a half miles of mansions on one side and open Atlantic on the other.
  • Catch WaterFire, when eighty braziers are lit along the rivers of downtown Providence after dark.
  • Take the ferry out to Block Island for the bluffs, the beaches, and the lighthouses.
  • Spend an hour at the RISD Museum, one of the best collections in New England attached to one of the best art schools.

A morning at Nicks, an afternoon on Block Island, and an evening at WaterFire is a genuinely full day, and only a state this compact would let you pull it off.

Wood-mounted patent art print of an anchor, a nod to Rhode Island's maritime history

Bring the coastline home

Ask a Rhode Islander for a map and they are more likely to offer to drive you around themselves. The state is small enough that people treat it as personal. When the trip ends, a wood chart keeps that coastline close. Our Narragansett and Newport chart is the most popular of our Rhode Island maps, with the bay and its channels carved layer by layer to their true depth.

If it was Block Island that stayed with you, the Block Island chart renders the island's shoreline and the surrounding depths in the same way. Either one makes a real handcrafted gift, and a good way to commemorate the trip long after the Del's stands close for the season.

See the full range of Rhode Island wood charts and find your stretch of the Ocean State.

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