Niantic
"Niantic is the size of an afternoon, which is exactly enough time to fall for it."
A pint-sized beach village in East Lyme where the boardwalk is short enough to walk twice before dinner and the ice cream line moves slower than the tide. Lia and I ended up here almost by accident and stayed for the sunset twice.
We only stopped in Niantic because a friend told us not to skip it, and I’m glad we listened, because it’s easy to drive right past this tiny beach village tucked into East Lyme without noticing it at all. The whole commercial strip is maybe four blocks long, Pennsylvania Avenue running parallel to the water, and it has the unfussy charm of a beach town that’s never bothered rebranding itself for anyone. Lia bought a two-dollar postcard from a shop that also sold beach chairs, kites, and, inexplicably, fine jewelry, and the owner talked to us for ten minutes about the tides like we were old regulars.
The boardwalk and Hole in the Wall Beach
Niantic’s boardwalk runs along the bay for less than a mile, but it’s built at exactly the right height to catch a sunset without obstruction, and we walked it twice in one evening just to watch the light change over the water. At its western end sits Hole in the Wall Beach, a small crescent of sand named for a rock formation just offshore, packed with local families rather than tourists — a sign, Lia pointed out, that we’d found somewhere real rather than curated. We got soft-serve from a stand that’s apparently been in the same spot since the 1950s and ate it sitting on a seawall while gulls eyed us with real intent.
Rocky Neck and the marshes beyond town
Just east of the village, Rocky Neck State Park gave us a longer, wilder stretch of coastline — a half-mile beach backed by a stone pavilion built during the Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps, its arches framing the Sound in a way that felt almost cinematic in late afternoon light. We hiked a short marsh trail afterward, herons stalking the shallows, and it struck me how much undeveloped coastline still survives this close to a town as built-up as Niantic’s summer crowds might suggest.
Getting There
Niantic sits along the Amtrak Northeast Regional corridor, though trains don’t stop directly in the village — the closest station is New London, about ten minutes away by car or taxi. Bradley International Airport (BDL) near Hartford is roughly an hour’s drive north. A car is the easiest way in and out, especially if you want to combine Niantic with Rocky Neck State Park or the nearby beaches along Route 156.
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