Date visited: 7/17/2022

This might have been just an ordinary walk int he woods, but volunteers have taken the extra steps to make this place a little bit more than that. There are signs that they created all along the way describing the plant life and history of the area. The first part of the trail that leads from the parking lot to the pond features 30 hand made poop shovels strategically placed along the trail. The sign on the main information board instructs dog walkers to "Launch it far off this laneway with a dog shovel". I've never seen that before on a trail! Evidently this a popular place with dog walkers. In fact, we witnessed a man flinging floating balls into the big pond for his dog to fetch. Mandy and Lexi will walk into a pond, maybe lay down to cool off, but they don't want anything to do with being out over their heads!

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Date visited: 9/24/2022

We stopped here on our way back from our trip to Gooseberry Neck, so I could get some additional steps. This spot consists of some wide dirt roads, as well as some standard trails that loop around. Some of the trails were overgrown. We mostly stayed on the well worn wide paths. This is a popular place dog walking place, and not all of them are always leashed. We encountered a nice woman at the start of our walk who thanked me for having the dogs on the leash.

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Date visited: 9/8/2024

This is a fantastic nature preserve and beach. Dogs are allowed in the off-season, from September 2nd until March 31st. There preserve includes a long stretch of scenic beach, Quicksand Pond, and some mowed and sandy trails in between. The preserve can only be reached by passing through South Shore Beach first. Last time we were at that beach, it was in the middle of winter and it was too cold to pass through a small creek that serves as the barrier between the two beaches. I came prepared to walk through the water for this trip, but there was no gap this time around. I'm actually glad we didn't get to explore this preserve in the winter, because it was a much more enjoyable day this time around. Weather was windy and cool, only about 70 degrees. We walked the length of the beach first. The eastern end of the beach actually crosses the state line into Westport Massachusetts, where we continued for a short stretch until we couldn't go any further. On the way back, we checked out the trails. They basically run in-between the beach and the pond. There's a barn building in a mowed clearing that serves as an education center, with an odd sign around the back indicating that this area is "Not a Bathroom". Assuming this must have been a problem at one point! This was a very fun adventure, and highly recommended!

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Date visited: 7/3/2024

There are secret beaches, and then there are "secret beaches"! This one doesn't even show up on Google Maps! I found it on an old PDF file that the University of Rhode Island put out entitled "Public Access to the Rhode Island Coast". Some of the information is out of date, since it was published in 2004. But the information on this beach was spot on! The beach is accessed at the end of Taylor's Lane (hence the name). There's a parking area for about 10 cars. There were only two other cars parked when I arrived, and no other cars when I left. The beach itself is rocky. It's surface is mostly loose pebble type stones, but there are areas with larger rocks, and even some spots with fine sand. The waves are moderate. We're up the cove a bit, but you can still see out to the open waters. Across the cove you can see Middletown and Newport. The beach is longer than I expected. There's about three quarters of a mile of easy walking, before the rocks on the north end get to be a little too much to conquer. I assume dogs are allowed. There were no signs that indicated otherwise. In fact, there were no other signs at all, but there was a trash and recycle bin in the parking lot. The only troubling thing was that we did come across what looked like a dead baby shark that washed up on shore. Other than that, this beach was a really nice find. I'm not really worried about spoiling the "secret" of this beach, since nobody really reads this website anyway!

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Date visited: 10/10/2024

This is a "private" beach for Little Compton residents. In the summer time, they post a guard who turns away out-of-towners. There's a Providence Journal article with a run down of the history and controversy with this beach. We didn't have any issue visiting in October, and the people (and dogs) we encountered were friendly. After reading some online descriptions of this beach, I thought it was a bit over rated. First of all there are a lot of rocks you have to walk through to reach the sandy portion, and secondly the beach was covered with seaweed. We were here at high tide, so that may have something to do it. There are some awesome views here of the Sakonnet Lighthouse and some small islands. It's actually a wonderful place to take some pictures. I thought I got some real nice ones here today. But I like the other beaches (especially Gooeswing) in this town better.

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Date visited: 1/12/2025

This is a cobble beach at the end of Town Way. There's room for three or four cars to park. It's not the kind of beach that you can walk barefoot in the sand. We first headed north about a third of a mile, but we hit Almy Creek. In the summer, I might have taken off my shoes and walked through to the other side, but that wasn't happening in the middle of January! The creek was interesting, as water was flowing down the creek into the bay, but the waves were pushing water back up the creek. The water was actually flowing in both directions in one spot. You can't really see it in the photos I took, but it was pretty cool to watch. We turned around and headed in the other direction for about a mile and a half. This section gets rocky, and we continued to a point where the terrain became to difficult for us to proceed any further. We stopped a few times to take photos on the rocks. I thought it was pretty scenic, but the photography was difficult because the sun was always in my way. Our whole trip out and back was a bit over two miles.

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Date visited: 6/21/2025

This beach area is east of Little Compton Town Landing, and west of Chase Point. The beach is primarily for residents. There are access paths that lead to the neighborhood. We walked here along the shoreline from the Town Landing. This is not a great swimming beach. The sandy is gravelly, and there was a fair amount of seaweed. There is a bench with a great vantage point overlooking a beach, and a set of chairs that may have been left by one of the residents. There was nobody else on the beach on a very warm Saturday afternoon in June, which was surprising...probably because it's not a great place to swim. I was wearing sandals and kept getting small rocks stuck in them. It was very uncomfortable. We walked the length of the beach. Mandy and Lexi wanted no part of climbing over the rocks on the east side near Chase Point, but they did enjoy cooling off in the water.

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Date visited: 6/21/2025

This is the town recreation of Meeting House Lane. There is a paved "figure 8" walking trail that circles the athletic fields. There are a few benches, small gardens, and a tennis court in addition to the athletic fields. There is also access to the Dundery Brook Trail, but dogs aren't allowed. The paved path also leads to the Wilbur and McMahon schools. We also walked through the Town Common before finishing the short loop trail around the park.

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Date visited: 6/21/2025

This is the area around the small Town Common. It really is pretty small. I can certainly see why the town's name is not "Big Compton"! There are a couple of restaurants, churches, the post office, community center and the town hall. It's really not a tourist town. We looped the common, before heading back to the recreation area of Meeting House Lane where we parked.