When I was looking up things to do for our trip to Boston, I discovered that Martha’s Vineyard was just a day trip away. From our Home Exchange in Brookline, it was a 1.5 hour drive to Falmouth and then a 45 minute ferry to Oak Bluffs via the Steamboat Authority ferry. It’s a super pleasant and smooth ride and I’d definitely recommend it if you’re planning on checking out MV. Plan to arrive an hour beforehand, as you have to park your car at an offsite lot and buy your tickets.

Upon landing in MV, we walked over to look at the Gingerbread Houses in Oak Bluffs. The colorful Victorian cottage houses originated in the 1880s when a group of Methodists wanted more permanent housing for their retreats. Today, 300 gingerbread houses are still standing in the Oak Bluffs Campground. Each house is unique and distinctive in their own way, which makes for a super interesting stroll.

After our walk, we called an Uber for a short ride over to Island Alpaca, where I had a very special activity planned. Island Alpaca is an alpaca farm located just a few minutes from Oak Bluffs. I had booked an Alpaca Walk with them a few weeks prior – $30 per person for their own alpaca and $20 per additional person sharing that alpaca. For the four of us, had two alpacas, Khan Dor and Atticus. You get roughly 20-25 minutes walking the alpacas, with tons of opportunities for pets, nuzzles, and photo ops!

Our alpaca, Khan Dor was more interested in an afternoon snack than us sometimes, but our guide taught us a super neat trick to get them to pose for photos. This was an absolutely amazing experience and I highly recommend it if you’re on MV. Make sure you book early though, because they only do two walks a day!

After our afternoon stroll with the alpacas, we Ubered back to Oak Bluffs and leisurely strolled up and down Circuit Avenue, grabbing lunch and a post-lunch coffee at Toccopuro, and shopping for souvenirs.

Near the ferry port is an amazing park with tons of beautiful lawn to picnic or fly kites. We saw this amazing kite in action.

If you’re looking for a beach trip, the left and right of the ferry port feature small beaches that are free to enter and swim.

A lot of our fellow passengers leaving MV had luggage with them, so we figured they had vacationed over the July 4th holiday weekend. I’d love to spend more time on MV, but I think we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on our short little day trip.