Since it’s the season of beach trips and the like, reader Harvey shares a fun beach getaway on the train for people who don’t like the beach.
He writes:
It’s the LIRR Sunken Forest package, which combines an interesting train trip on a comfy two-seater double-decker (east of Jamaica) with a great half-hour ferry ride on the Great South Bay. Then you can split your time on Fire Island among an exploration of the boardwalk trail through the Sunken Forest, a short stint on the relatively clean, uncrowded beach, and a half-mile walk over to ever-so-cool Cherry Grove for some (not-so-copious) alcohol consumption at a cafe overlooking the bay.
One trick we just noticed (too late to try it out, so we don’t know if it works) is that the return ferry tickets are marked with the date but not the route, so you might get away with returning directly from Cherry Grove instead of walking back to Sunken Forest.
Best part: no soul-crushing traffic, except watching it as you roll over the Wantagh and Meadowbrook Parkways if the dispatchers happen to route you via the crossover and main line rather than the Babylon branch.