Nantucket on a Budget: How we Made This Luxury Destination Family-Friendly and Affordable

Nantucket is definitely known as a luxury, high-end destination. And if you’re a family with young children like us, it might not be possible to book really expensive hotels. While we do travel on a budget, my family also loves luxury destinations, so I was determined to figure out how to travel to Nantucket on our budget. Here’s a few of the ways I made it affordable for us – hopefully some of these tips will be helpful if you’re visiting Nantucket too!

Transportation to Nantucket

There are a couple ways to get to the island. First is by air (regional airline, Cape Air, provides year-round service, while larger carriers like Delta, JetBlue and United offer seasonal service). Second is by ferry on either the Hy-Line or Steamship Authority. We live in the Midwest, so it wasn’t practical to fly to the East Coast, then take the ferry, so we flew Delta the whole way. 

We booked our tickets about eight months in advance, so we were able to take advantage of really great award pricing, and ended up getting three round trip tickets for free (or a few bucks in  taxes, if you know how award flights work). Free flights was a great start to the vacation, and left us a little extra spending cash when it came to other things like hotels and activities. 

Time of year

We visited in early/mid-June, which was actually just a bit before the season started. There were pros and cons, but a major pro was definitely lower costs on hotels and the ability to get a dinner reservation very easily. Some of the cons were that the weather was still a little cool and rainy, and the outdoor pool at our hotel hadn’t yet opened for the season, but if you’re okay with indoor activities (here’s a great suggestion!), I think this time of year is a great way to do Nantucket on a budget. 

Hotel choice

Some of the hotels in Nantucket are VERY expensive, way out of our price range. But there are some affordable (and still wonderful!) options available. We stayed at the Nantucket Inn (read my review of it here!) and absolutely loved it and would recommend it to anyone. The price was still not cheap, but about half (or more!) what some of the other hotels were charging – and it had great amenities. 

All in all, Nantucket is definitely a possibility to do on a budget. Now that we’ve saved some money, time to plan our return trip!