Old Silver Beach

The crown jewel of Falmouth's bay-side beaches. Warm, calm water and legendary sunsets make this the Cape's best family beach. The sandbar at low tide creates a natural wading pool that kids go crazy for.

Old Silver Beach is the flagship of Falmouth's beaches and one of the great Cape Cod family beaches — a half-mile crescent of fine white sand on Buzzards Bay in West Falmouth, with the warmest water on the Upper Cape and a low-tide sandbar that creates a tidal lagoon kids can wade across for hundreds of yards. The water faces west, so the afternoon swimming light is gorgeous and the sunsets are postcard-grade — locals come at dusk with takeout from the Silver Beach Snack Bar and watch the sky go pink over Wings Neck. There's a big paved lot, a real bathhouse with showers, lifeguards, and a daily-fee gate (it's one of the more expensive Cape day-pass beaches, but worth it). The beach is divided by a narrow tidal inlet into a north and south section; the south section, closer to the snack bar, is the family epicenter, while the north section toward Wood Neck has more solitude. On August evenings the parking lot empties into the snack-bar line and the late-day crowd takes over.