Day Trip to Fire Island, New York (Long Island)

Kirsten in front of Fire Island Lighthouse

Kirsten and I went to Fire island today. I did a little research about it on someone else’s blog and it helped me decide how I was going to do this little sojourn so this blog entry is to return the favor to those out there wondering about how best to get to, and enjoy Fire Island.

I was fortunate enough to be able to have weekend access one of my Luzzo’s cycling team mate’s car equipped with roof racks. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be more affordable to drive there or take public transportation. So I did some research.

Costs of getting there

Turns out if your party is 2 or more people and you have a car, I think driving there is the most affordable (and fastest) option
Round Trip Car Expenses from Manhattan: $28 (Tolls $11.00, Gas $10, Parking $7)
Round Trip Using Public Transportation (per person): $26 (Rail: $12, Ferry:$14)

Fire Island

I had heard that there is extremely limited automobile access to Fire Island. Being a cyclist, I got excited about this thinking it could be a possible cyclist’s paradise. Since we had the roof racks on the car, I loaded up our road bikes with tires fit for riding on dirt surfaces.
The road to Robert Moses across the bay.

We drove from our place in Northern Manhattan to Robert Moses State Park where there are at least 3 huge parking fields with convenient beach access. We made a point of leaving by 8:30am on Saturday morning to ensure we were beating most of the hung over city-dwellers that may have had the same idea. We got there in about 50 minutes – no problems with traffic. Easy.

There was plenty of parking at Robert Moses State Park. We parked, and took off on the bikes north. Riding was easy at first – hard-packed dirt roads which passed the lighthouse.

However, shortly after the ranger’s station (about 10 minutes from the parking lot) the road gets too sandy to even ride a mountain bike. We had to walk the bikes for about 10 minutes until the edge of Saltaire, the first town north of the parking area. No cars, other than the local’s, are allowed here.

(above) Sandy roads not suited for a bikes - this is one of the barriers the locals use protect their towns from annoying bikers, I guess. The other is not to allow bikes aboard the ferries.

Saltaire

Walkway to a quiet beach in Saltaire

A modest-looking abode in Saltaire

Fences protecting the dunes on quiet beach in Saltaire. I can't believe we are less than 1 hour from the city!
Looks like it's time to clean the camera's sensor.

We spoke with one local who had been there for some time to get some perspective on what living on Fire Island is like. He loved it. Said that getting on and off the island was a little bit of a bother, though. During peak tourist seasons, residents are only allowed to come on and off the island one time per day with a car (minus some exceptions such as a woman with a child needing an excessive amount of chauffeur service for her daughter who was being educated at a private school on the “mainland”. In Saltaire I only saw about 2 cars, though.

Brian being awkward with his bike in "downtown" Saltaire

Although I am not sure, judging from the number of boats on the bayside, I think that most of the residents have their own boat transportation to/from the island and park their cars on the mainland. We did a little tour of the docks and found some pretty impressive boats.give me 1/4 of what this boat costs and I'll get more positive utility from it than its owner. Below are shaded, wooded walkways of Saltaire.

Houses in Fire Island seem modest relative to how much they actually cost. Some of the pictures show that “simple” seems to be the common theme around Saltaire. I perused the local grocery store and didn’t see anything truly gourmet and the small restaurants seemed to be geared for day tourists. Most of the locals may shop inland. A good number of the homes that we saw were for rent.

The Beach

After checking out Saltaire, we headed back to field 5 where the car was parked, went to the beach and enjoyed the larger-than-usual waves and sun.

Kirsten relaxing on the more crowded beach of "field 5", Robert Moses State Park

Some decent waves at Robert Moses Beach

Our return trip home wasn’t as fast. We left at 3:30pm and it took us about 2 hours to get home; we got stuck in a little traffic. Before heading home, I recommend that you stop by an Italian Ice Cream shop in West Babylon called “Ralph’s Italian Ices” – great, lighter ice cream with a ton of flavors to choose from (1363 Deer Park Ave North Babylon, NY 11703). I read that this is a ice cream chain but I have never seen any others.

Truly, a great trip and hard to believe this place is less than an hour away from our little apartment hidden in the concrete jungle of Manhattan. Next time we go, however, I’ll leave the bikes at home and enjoy the island on foot.

For more information about fire island click the link below:
History
Detailed cost information

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