The Town of Barnstable, including its population center of Hyannis, has eleven beaches, but only six (map) are open to everyone; the others are private or reserved for town-resident taxpayers.

Visitors pay for the beach by paying for parking, so if you walk or bike there, or arrive by car late in the afternoon after the pay-collectors have departed for the day, you probably won't have to pay.

Here are Barnstable and Hyannis's six public beaches:

Veterans Park Beach

Veterans Park Beach on Ocean Street, just over a mile (1.6 km, a 20-minute walk) due south of the Hyannis Transportation Center and a half-mile (800 meters) south of the Ocean Street (Hy-Line Ferry) Docks, is the closest beach to the center of Hyannis. Right next to the John F Kennedy Memorial, it overlooks Hyannis's boat-filled harbor and the Hyannis Yacht Club.

Facilities include pay parking, a bathhouse, toilets, snack stand, picnic area with grills, and a lifeguard.

Kalmus Park Beach

	Kalmus Park Beach, Hyannis MA

Kalmus Park Beach, at the southern end of Ocean Street 1.7 miles (2.7 km; 35- to 45-minute walk) from the Hyannis Transportation Center, and 6/10 mile (1 km) south of Veterans Park Beach, is actually two beaches: one toward the harbor and one toward the ocean. Surfing is allowed from the ocean beach.

A bathhouse, toilets, lifeguard and snack sales serve both beaches, and there's pay parking.

Orrin Keyes Beach

At the southern end of Sea Street, 1.3 miles (2.09 km; 22- to 28-minute walk; map) from the JFK Museum, Keyes Beach (also called Sea Street Beach) has a bathhouse, toilets, lifeguard, snack stand and pay parking, and extends westward into the private Ocean Avenue Beach toward the Kennedy Compound.

Craigville Beach

Craigville is one of those l-o-n-g, sandy Nantucket Sound beaches that makes Cape Cod such a beach-lover's paradise. It extends along Centerville Harbor 4.3 miles (7 km) southwest of the Hyannis Transportation Center (map). Bath house with showers and toilets, snack stand and pay parking are the services.

Sandy Neck Beach

Sandy Neck Beach, off MA Route 6A facing Cape Cod Bay in West Barnstable, 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the Hyannis Transportation Center (map), is the town's finest northern, warm-water beach. It has the standard services: bath house with toilets, and snack stand.

Hathaway's Pond Beach

For freshwater swimming, Hathaway's Pond, on Phinney's Lane 3 miles northwest of the Hyannis Transportation Center, is Hyannis's contribution. There's a bath house with toilets.

—by Tom Brosnahan

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