For years my queer friends have been telling me "You gotta go to P-Town." I understood why—Provincetown, MA is a famous queer destination—but I didn't really know how it would feel until I got there.
There are few places in this world that I feel like I can be absolutely 100% myself. P-Town is now one of those places.
This post is about my experience in P-Town for Memorial Day Weekend and how it shot up to the top of my list of favorite towns to visit in the USA.
The Invitation
There have been many invitations over the years to go to P-Town. I was never resisting a trip there. It just never happened to fall into place in terms of timing and cost.
Throughout graduate school, I received many invites. But I was usually too poor or too busy completing a paper or analyzing data to go. Besides, I lived in the best city in the world—New York! What more could I want in a queer-accepting place to be?
The timing for an invite finally arrived on a random trip to Boston with my friend Christiana after Christmas last year. After a day at the Museum of Science and an evening of oyster consumption, we went to a queer bar to meet up with Laura and her girlfriend Martina.
Laura and I were best friends in college. We grew apart over the years but always kept in touch. We hadn't seen each other in nearly 10 years! She suggested we go to P-Town for Women's Weekend and the timing was perfect. She caught me early enough that I had no plans yet and it was after my students would be off for summer, so I would be free to take time off.
Shortly after receiving the invite, I had a first date with my current partner, Ivana. Our relationship grew leading up to the trip, so she came with me to P-Town for Women's Weekend in May.
The Queer History of P-Town
Our Airbnb in Provincetown, MA
Provincetown, MA (otherwise referred to as P-Town) is a small resort town at the tip of Cape Cod. It's home to under 3000 people year round. But in the warmer months, this town becomes a queer travel destination and the population skyrockets to 60,000 people.
Bostonians are probably the largest population of visitors that P-Town gets. But many people travel far and wide to experience its charm and unique queer acceptance.
In the early 1900s, P-Town began developing rapidly into an artists' colony with a flair for experimental theatre. Visitors were very eclectic, drawn to the area by its natural beauty and acceptance of the avant garde. Eventually they settled and started businesses there.
The gay people who moved there, despite feeling persecuted elsewhere in the country, found a kind of freedom among P-Town's artsy community. There are records showing drag queens in Provincetown as early as the 1940s.
The gay population were already a dominant presence when hippies settled there, attracted to its low rent prices and rural, seaside way of life.
Many businesses, including restaurants, bars, and shops came to Provincetown during this time. They mainly opened in summer and catered to a strong gay tourist crowd. To attract more gay people to the area, the Provincetown Business Guild was formed in 1978.
By the 2010 census, P-Town now has the highest rate of same-gender resident couples in the country. This was after MA had legalized same-gender marriage in the state but it was still not federal law.
Today, Provincetown is the most well-known East Coast queer destination town even over Fire Island in New York.
Aside from its queer history, P-Town is famous for other reasons. The following is a glimpse at some of the wonderful sightseeing, food, and other experiences you can have in P-Town—queer or otherwise!
The Causeway Walk
One of the most popular things to do in P-Town is to take a walk out onto the pier called the Provincetown Causeway. This is a mile-long, narrow walk-way across the water with lots of uneven boulders.
There is a park at the start of the causeway where you'll see a little plaque marking a very special point in the history of the USA. P-Town is the landing place of where the Mayflower Compact was signed. That's right, the pilgrims first anchored at P-Town.
The best time to walk the causeway is when the tide is out. You can walk up on the pier or choose to walk down in the sand!
We alternated between the two options.
The causeway goes all the way to the lighthouse—a 3 hour round-trip walk.
We went most of the way, but turned back when we reached land. Be careful of poison ivy, as there was lots growing here in the middle of the summer.
Commercial Street
We stay at an Airbnb within walking distance North of Commercial street. This was ideal, since Commercial street is the main tourist area in P-Town.
Commercial street runs parallel to the inner beaches of P-Town. There are tons of art galleries, shops, restaurants, and street art to see.
I especially loved the alleyway next to Spank the Monkey gallery. The art was so queer and quirky and random.
We went into lots of shops and galleries that weekend. I had to resist buying everything—most if it is definitely not inexpensive stuff!
Some of my favorite parts of commercial street were the little hints of color, the messages about acceptance, and the drag queens advertising shows and late night bar specials.
The Beach in P-Town
South of Commercial street are the beaches.
The beach was both the first and the last parts of P-Town that Ivana and I checked out. We went there our first day exploring and found it was very peaceful—not quite swimming weather yet.
Some people were walking their dogs.
And at one point someone rode a horse right into the water! Although I'm not super comfortable with horseback riding as a hobby for humans, I have to admit it was a beautiful scene.
I enjoyed lying in the sand in the sun—so nice after a long, cold winter in New York.
P-Town Pirates
Aside for the queerness, I loved this town because of it's seaside characteristics.
The harbor and the marina with beautiful boats—this is familiar to me growing up in a family of boaters.
What I didn't expect was to find a pirate museum! This is another random sort of interest and love of mine. I think since watching Peter Pan as a kid, I have always had an affinity for pirate-y things.
So I was delighted when Ivana and I stumbled across the Whydah Pirate Museum.
The Whydah was a ship that was wrecked off Cape Cod in 1717. Legend tells that a bunch of treasure went down with it. The archaeological work they do around the wreck established this museum. As a National Geographic Society “Special Event," their recovery project of the "world's only pirate treasure"—including jewelry, clothing, and weapons, can be seen in this museum.
While I didn't get a ticket to check it out this time, I just might next time I visit!
Food of the Sea
Like a pirate, I ate so much seafood while visiting P-Town and all of it was amazing!
Our first night we went to Tin Pan Alley and I ordered the Taste of Cape Cod which included fish and chips, new england clam chowder, and a lobster roll. All of it was awesome!
Another night, we ate and drank at Patio restaurant. I loved this spot for its outdoor, cozy seating.
Nobody at the table wanted to try any of their raw seafood, but I had a sample of clams and oysters and they were some of the freshest I've ever had!
Sweets
The Nut House is down the street a bit from the Tin Pan Alley. We went there after to get our sweet fix. This place is amazing for it's collection of sweets, mainly including chocolate and sugar-coated nuts of all varieties.
I opted to have some of their ice cream! Yum!
Another really famous place is Scottcakes. These are little mini cupcakes made one flavor. They are famous because of the owner—Scott Cunningham. His story was turned into a musical!
The cupcakes were good but not great. What was great about them was that they were nipple-sized…
Tea Dances
Our favorite activity for the weekend was the afternoon tea dances. Starting at 4pm at the Boatslip Beach Club, tons of people come together to drink, socialize, and dance!
The scene is a little meat-market-like out on the deck, with everyone checking out everyone. But it also felt like a huge, extended family reunion where you don't really know who any of your cousins are and you're glad they're not actually blood-related anyway.
The drink of choice there seemed to be the spiked seltzer waters that are popular in summers now. Most people were drinking those if they weren't drinking a beer.
The music was great—and in the building, shaded from the sun, an enormous dance party sprouted each day. Particularly on Sunday, the last tea dance of the weekend, people from 18 to 80 and of every race, gender, and sexuality were dancing together in a huge crowd. The final song had everyone singing and cheering at the close of the tea dance.
When Queer Is The Norm
One of the most intoxicating aspects of visiting P-Town was how incredibly comfortable I felt. I've been all over the world and all across the USA. I've been to extremely queer accepting places, like the Castro in San Francisco, and lived in New York City, one of the most liberal and difference-celebrating cities in the world.
But I've never experienced acceptance like I did in P-Town.
Walking the streets there, holding hands with Ivana, I was able to completely let my guard down. I could kiss her when I wanted without worrying that someone was looking and even thinking once about it.
I didn't have to worry about someone commenting on my hair because they “don't have the balls" to cut their own short like mine or staring because I look too edgy or too androgynous at times.
Everyone in P-Town was there either because they are queer, too, or because they are advocates and allies of our community.
Okay – let me be totally fair here. Maybe there were a few people who didn't realize it was a queer destination and were surprised by what they found. And, okay, maybe there were a few people who came to P-Town partially to go on Queer Safari. But even if that was the case, they were the ones in the minority. It felt very much like all us queers saying to any of them—"You're on our land, in our town, and you don't get to make the rules now."
Liberating is the word for it. I believe the last time I actually felt that—that I felt liberated—it was the first time I cut off all my hair.
It's strange going to a place like P-Town. You suddenly realize all the weight you actually carry around with you as a queer person in straight and cis spaces all the time. It was so nice to take a vacation from that. I could just be me and have the queer part be not even a thing—because in P-Town, Queer is the norm.
And that, to me, is the definition of a safe space. That is what queer people in my field, in education, are always talking about: creating safe spaces. These are spaces where queer can be the norm for just a few minutes. It's a tiny vacation from straight land and everything from the tiny annoyances and inconveniences of every day life to the fatal human rights violations.
Queer people, my community, are an amazing community of adaptability and resilience. We put up with so much. We deserve a little town like P-Town. I'm so glad it exists!
In Conclusion
I had such a wonderful weekend trip to P-Town with Ivana, Laura, and Martina. We all got along great, had the perfect Airbnb experience, and enjoyed every minute of this unique little queer village. The only downside of the whole trip was driving in and out! There was a ton of traffic because there is only one main road in and out along the Cape.
The traffic was so bad that Ivana and I actually missed our ferry across Long Island sound back to New York! But that's ok – we just hung out and caught the next one!
Definitely plan ahead if you drive out to P-Town. Allow time for traffic, especially if you travel on a weekend and a holiday weekend like Memorial Day! But once you're there, enjoy every minute of what this unique place has to offer.
