North Kingstown

Compass Rose Beach

Date visited: 5/21/2022

There's only one beach I know of in Connecticut that allows dogs year round, but I found three in the same Rhode Island town. This probably isn't the nicest beach in the area, but it has water and sand, allows dogs, and you don't have to pay to park! The beach is located past a large industrial park at Quonset Point that includes General Dyanmics Electric Boat. It's sort of tucked away in a corner. The parking lot was nearly full, and it seemed like everyone who was there had a dog with them. It really is a wonderful hidden gem for dog owners who have dogs that love the beach!

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Date visited: 6/19/2025

We made a handful of trips to Rhode Island in 2020 & 2021, but when we started visiting the state on a regular basis during the spring of 2022, this was the fist place we visited! When you search for "Dog Friendly Beaches in Rhode Island" on the internet, this one will be on the top of the list. It's one of four such beaches located in the Quonset Point Industrial Park. It's probably the smallest of the four, but it features the largest parking area. It was a very warm day, and a state holiday, so the beach was quite full, but there were still plenty of parking spots left. There is a large grassy area with picnic tables in front of the beach. It's not the greatest place to take a long walk with the dogs, but it's a great place if you just want to hang out on the beach with your dogs any time of year!

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Blue Beach

Dates visited: 5/21/2022 & 7/3/2023

This is another, even lesser known beach at Quonset Park, about a mile away from Compass Rose Beach. This one features a quarter mile gravel trail that takes you to the beach, which may actually be a little bit larger than Compass Rose. The first time we visited here, I had a smudge on my camera lens that I didn't realize, and very few of the pictures from here came out. We came here the next year on a very hot and humid day. We got plenty of photos this time. I actually took off my shoes and went in and tried to get the dogs to go out farther, but they just wanted to stay at the edge as usual.

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John H. Chafee Rome Point Preserve

Date visited: 5/21/2022

This is a fantastic Nature Preserve, that has a little bit of everything. We hike a 2.5 mile loop trail that had three distinct sections. The first section is a wide, flat, gravel path that leads from the parking lot to the shore. The second part is a walk along the shore, which is somewhat rocky and "shelly" in places that leads to Rome Point. The third part of the path is a wooded trail that runs along side the back of Bissel Cove. It really is like three places in one! The beachy area is a bit rocky, but it's a wonderful spot for the dogs when the weather is hot!

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Date visited: 6/9/2024

On our second visit here, we used the main trail down to the shore, but then headed south toward the bridge instead of following the loop to Rome Point. We basically used this trail to reach Greene Point, as this seems to be the only way to access that area.

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Seabee Museum & Memorial Park

Dates visited: 7/29/2022 & 10/4/2023

This museum and park is a memorial to the US Navy Seabees, who were stationed in Davisville (part of North Kingstown) from 1942 to 1994. Seabees are also known as the US Naval Construction Battalion, and date back to World War II. The giant seabee caught my eye from the street, so we stopped and checked the place out. We returned a second time, over a year later. We accessed the park from the Quonset Point Bike Trail, and took a few more photos of different sections of the park.

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Ryan Park

Date visited: 8/20/2022

There's a jumble of unblazed trails here. I definitely needed the GPS for this one. There is a pond nearby, but none of the two and a half miles of trails we hiked went anywhere near the pond. The last third of our loop lacked shade. This wasn't a bad hike by any means, just not a very memorable one.

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Date visited: 8/25/2025

We returned to this park to discover one of the three new trolls from Thomas Danbo. We parked at the lot labeled "Ryan Park Trailhead 1" off Oak Hill Road. The troll, named "Iver Mudslider" is located about three quarters of a mile down the wide dirt road. On our way back, we hiked one of the side trails hat loops back to the parking area, just to change things up a bit. We visited the new troll at Arcadia Management Area earlier in the day. The third new troll is in East Providence, off the East Bay Bike Path near Kettle Point. We visited the two trolls at Ninigret Park in Charlestown last year, shortly after their unveiling.

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Wilson Park

Date visited: 8/20/2022

This is a regular park, with athletic fields and playgrounds and what not. Due to the heat, we skipped the standard park stuff and went to the rear of the park where this is a boat launch, a bike trail, and a short trail that runs along side Mill Cove. It was pretty scenic, but the dogs weren't feeling it. For whatever reason, they didn't want to cooperate with the photos here, though I did manage to get a couple good ones. Both dogs also got to cool off in the water for a bit.

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Date visited: 12/19/2024

We returned to this park while we were visiting Wickford Village during the holiday season. This time, we walked the paved track, and stopped to take a photo near what look like brand new pickle ball courts. Instead of walking back to the village via West Main Street, we utilized the path through Bush Hill that leads back to the village.

Quonset Point Bike Path

Dates visited: 7/29/2022 & 7/11/2023

The only way for us to get to Calf Pasture Point Beach was for us to walk there via this bike path, since parking near the actual beach is for neighborhood residents only. It's a mile and a half to the beach from the parking area at the end of Marine Road. The trail also extends west to a shopping plaza, but we walked that section at a later date.

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Date visited: 10/4/2023

This is the beginning of the western end of the bike trail that starts at The Shops at Quonset Point, and eventually heads east to Calf Pasture Beach. We stopped here so I could get some additional steps. We also visited Seabee Memorial Park & Museum, which can be accessed from this section of the trail. We only walked about a half mile before turning around. We still have the middle section of this trail left to complete.

Date visited: 1/3/2025

In July of 2022, we walked the section of this trail from the Marine Road parking lot to the beach. In October of 2023, we walked the section near the shopping center and the Seabee Museum. This time we tackled the middle section of the trail, in between the two sections we walked previously. This part of the trail isn't as interesting, but it is clean and very well maintained. There are poop bag dispensers, and also garbage cans along the trail (a rarity for Rhode Island). The section runs along side the Quonset business park, and some athletic fields. Dogs are not allowed on the field. It also runs along side Newcomb Road, with a black chain link fence separating the trail from the road. This section of trail was about 2.2 miles, so we walked almost 4.5 miles out and back. We've now walked the entire trail.

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Calf Pasture Point Recreation Area

Dates visited: 7/29/2022 & 7/11/2023

This is one of four beaches in North Kingstown that I've found that allow dogs year round. Non residents can only access the beach via a 1.5 mile walk on the Quonset Point Bike Path. There's a loop you can hike that incorporates the beach front around the point, and a wide dirt path through the woods back to the bike path. On our first visit, we did not complete the loop. We basically just walked the bike path to the beach, and turned around. The weather was gloomy that day, and we had already done a long walk at a different place. On our second visit, we did walk the entire loop, which according to my Apple Watch, was just short of 4.5 miles total. The beach is more rocky than sandy, so probably not the ideal sun-bathing beach. Even on a hot, clear summer evening, the beach was practially deserted. The dogs had just gone to the groomers earlier that day, and with the short hair weren't hot enough to actually go into the water.

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King/Benson Preserve

Date visited: 7/6/2023

This is one of the Nature Conservancy's "flagship" preserves. There's a one mile blue bazed trail that connects to a yellow blazed loop trail. The yellow trail goes down a hill over a long section of wooden planks until it reaches a pond at the site of an old girl scout camp. We didn't pass anyone on our way down to the pond, but there was a few groups of people down at the pond once we got there. The beach area wasn't very big, so it was hard to take pictures of the dogs in the pond. Mandy and Lexi enjoyed cooling off in the pond. Shortly after the pond, there is a nice section of trail lined with very tall pine trees, and a small waterfall that was barely a waterfall. We hiked a bit over three miles here.

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Jamestown Bridge Lookout

Date visited: 7/6/2023

This is a scenic lookout spot, about a quarter mile on the opposite side of Route 1A from King/Benson Preserve. The spot offers a nice view of the Jamestown Bridge and the west portion of Narragansett Bay.

Spink Neck Beach

Date visited: 10/4/2023

This the fourth different beach we've visited in the Quonset Point section of town. Like the others, it opens out to the bay, so the waves are mild. Mandy and Lexi love sitting in the water when it's calm. Also like the other Quonset beaches, dogs are allowed here year round. We visited on an 80 degree afternoon in early October. There's a very short trail that leads out to some rocks.

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Date visited: 6/19/2025

This was our second trip to this dog-friendly beach. It's one of four free, dog-friendly beaches located within the Quonest Point Industrial Park. It was pretty busy, but there was still a few parking spots left. I saw a lot of families with little kids here. It's a good beach for them because the waves are mild. It's a good beach for Mandy and Lexi too, since they like mild waves! Like last time, we walked to the rocky area and took some photos.

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Greene Point

Date visited: 6/9/2024

This is the area of the North Kingstown shoreline between John H. Chafee Nature Preserve and the Jamestown Bridge. The only way to access this area (without owning adjacent property) is to climb over the rocks at the southern border of the Chafee Preserve. The one Google review of this area refers to this spot as a "hidden gem", and I'd have to agree. There are outstanding views of the Jamestown Bridge along a rocky and sandy shoreline. There is a small salt pond on the other side of the beach. There's a crossing of the small stream between the pond and the bay on rocks, but Mandy and Lexi just walked through the stream instead! There were lots of birds here, including the Red-Faced Cormorant, one of which was stretching his wings while perched on a rock off the shore.

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Historic Wickford Village

Date visited: 7/2/2024

We started our walk through Historic Wickford Village at the Wickford Town Dock, located at the end of Main Street. There is a free parking lot there, along with the dock and a park-like area. There is also a public waterfront access path that leads to a very tiny beach. After exploring the dock, we headed west down Main Street. Historic houses built in the 1700's & 1800's line Main Street, each with a sign indicating the year the house was built and who lived there. After a short walk down Main Street, we turned onto Brown Street. This part of Wickford features shops and restaurants, as well as some more park like areas. We crossed the Hussey bridge on Boston Neck Road, and then headed down Beach Street toward North Kingstown Town Beach. Dogs aren't allowed on this beach, which was fine by me. The dogs just got back from the groomers before our trip. I wanted to have at least a couple days where they stayed clean! Also, there are four other dog-friendly beaches in town, some of which seem just as nice as this one anyway. At this point, we turned around and headed back the way we came. We walked a bit over three miles total here through this really nice New England village.

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Date visited: 12/19/2024

We returned here to take some Christmas photos. Most of the shops are decorated. It looks like the town held a contest to see which shop had the best holiday display. There were signs up at the shops that took first and third place, but we didn't see the second place winner. We also walked through the surrounding neighborhood, and headed to Wilson Park, walking four miles total.

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Roy Boy's Clam Shack

Dates visited: 8/13/2024 & 8/16/2024

We've stopped here for food a number of times on our trips to Rhode Island. It's reasonably priced, the food is excellent, and there is dog-friendly outdoor seating. I've gotten clam rolls and shrimp po-boys here, and the dogs get a plain hot dog.

Bush Hill Open Space

Date visited: 12/19/2024

There's a trail here through the woods and a salt marsh, leading from Wilson Park to Wickford Village. I'm not a fan of these kinds of trails this time of year, because everything looks so blah. I bet the marsh looks really beautiful in the summer time. The trail served it's purpose though, as we were able to use the trail to get back to the village from the park.

Bissel Cove

Date visited: 3/3/2025

There is a shoreline access point at the corner of Worlsey and Seaview Avenues with a small parking area. The signs indicate a parking sticker from the town is required to park. There's a small cobble beach, and some rockier areas that look out on the cove. This spot is more of a boat launch or fishing spot than a swimming area. We were only here for about 10 minutes or so. We took some photos and then left.

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McGinn Park

Date visited: 4/10/2025

We actually stopped at this park to eat lunch (take out from Roy Boy's Clam Shack). The sun came out, so after we finished eating, we decided to check out the park. It's a pretty typical town park, situated next to Davisville Middle School. Dogs are not allowed on the athletic fields, but there is a short walking trail that circles the fields that we were able to utilize. The path is paved until it briefly enters the woods, and then becomes a stone dust surfaced trail for the rest of the loop. It's not a bad spot for a quick walk.

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Allen Harbor

Date visited: 6/19/2025

This was the first of five stops we made on this very warm day. There is a small park, and a thin strip of sand along the mouth of Allen Harbor. It's used primarily as a fishing spot. There was a friendly couple sitting in lawn chairs, enjoying their Del's, that made friends with Mandy and Lexi. It doesn't get more Rhode Island than that! This isn't a large area. The park is tiny and the sandy area is short, so you can't get much of a walk here. Calf Pasture Point Recreation Area is across the harbor, and Spink Neck Beach is just around the corner, and we headed there next.

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Silver Spring Lake

Date visited: 7/16/2025

There are actually three different parking areas along Silver Spring Road with access to the lake. We parked at the first one, right near the dam. There is a cool bridge, and another fishing platform. It's hard to see the waterfall under the bridge because of the shadows. At the end of the street is another parking area, near a small boat launch. There is also a short, overgrown trail in the woods that parallels the shore for about a quarter mile, before it just ends. The lake is a bit mucky, but despite my better judgement I let the dogs go in the water at the boat launch since it was such a hot day. It's not the best spot for dogs to swim, as they came out a mess (they were able to clean off at the next place we visited).