Milford, CT
Silver Sands State Park
A boardwalk over the marsh, a beach that doesn't require a highway drive, and a sandbar that appears out of the ocean twice a day like a magic trick.
Drive time
About 20 min
Difficulty
Easy, flat
Distance
Boardwalk ~1.5 mi; sandbar walk ~1 mi round trip
Admission
Free
Parking
Free lot, fills on hot summer weekends
Bathrooms
Seasonal facilities near the pavilion
Picnic
Yes, plus food trucks in summer
Dogs
October through March only
The trip
Silver Sands is the beach we go to when we decide to go to the beach at 9 AM the same day. Twenty minutes, free parking, no Hammonasset-scale logistics. The lot to sand transition is about ninety seconds, which with small kids is the difference between a good day and a meltdown in a parking lot.
The boardwalk runs over a salt marsh and it's honestly the best part. Fiddler crabs, egrets, the occasional osprey, and enough boardwalk length that the kids can run ahead without you needing to sprint.
At low tide a half-mile sandbar walks you out to an island with pirate legends. At high tide it's gone. Check the chart before you promise anything.
The headline act is Charles Island. At low tide a sandbar surfaces and you can walk the half mile out to it. The island has actual pirate legends attached (Captain Kidd allegedly buried treasure there, which is a sentence that buys you at least an hour of kid engagement).
Do not linger on the island. The tide comes back in faster than you think and people get stranded every summer. We walk out, touch the island, hunt shells for ten minutes, and head back. The rule is: the water decides, not us.
Bird note for half the year: the island closes entirely May through August for nesting herons and egrets. The sandbar walk is still worth it; you just turn around at the rope.
Checking this weekend's weather…
Kid rating
★★★★★
Snack rating
★★★★☆
Dad rating
★★★★☆
Would we go again?
Absolutely
“We go a dozen times a year. It's the default.”
Dad tips
- ▸Check the tide chart before you leave the house and build the day around low tide. This is the whole trip.
- ▸The sandbar rocks are barnacle-covered. Water shoes, non-negotiable.
- ▸Arrive before 10 on hot Saturdays or you're parking in the overflow.
- ▸The marsh boardwalk at golden hour is the best free photo op in the area.
- ▸Island is closed for bird nesting May-Aug. Tell the kids it's the herons' summer house. It works.
What the kids enjoyed
- ◆Walking on ocean floor that was underwater an hour earlier
- ◆Fiddler crab colonies along the boardwalk
- ◆Pirate treasure stories about Charles Island
- ◆Shell hunting on the sandbar
What to bring
- ✓Water shoes for everyone
- ✓Tide chart screenshot (cell service is fine, but still)
- ✓Sunscreen, there is zero shade on the sandbar
- ✓Buckets for the shell haul
- ✓Towels and a change of clothes
Best time to visit
Late spring and early fall for space; summer for the full beach day
While you're out there
Nearby stops
Food
Milford center
Ten minutes away, plenty of kid-tolerant options around the green
Ice cream
Walnut Beach Creamery
Five minutes down the shore road, homemade, the line moves fast
Playgrounds
Walnut Beach playground
Right next to the creamery, which is dangerous knowledge
Keep exploring
Related adventures
Day AdventuresGroton & Mystic, CT
Day Adventure: Groton & Mystic
A real nuclear submarine (free), lunch by a drawbridge that performs on the hour, the best ice cream timing trick in Connecticut, and a bookstore with goats on the way home. The eastern cluster, assembled.
Day AdventuresBranford, CT
Day Adventure: Branford
A boat tour through an archipelago of tiny pink-granite islands with pirate-treasure legends, a village that time forgot, seafood-shack lunch, and ice cream on the green. Episode three goes to the shoreline.
Family AdventuresMontville (Oakdale), CT
The Dinosaur Place
Over forty life-size dinosaurs on wooded trails, a splash pad, and a maze. For the dinosaur-phase years, this is the promised land, and it's an hour from home.