I've always been more of a lake guy than an ocean guy, but we ended up at Oakland Beach because we…read morewere meeting friends for dinner nearby. Since we had some time to kill, we decided to take a walk along the beach and see what it had to offer. The first thing I'll say is that this isn't the place to visit if you're looking for that classic Rhode Island beach experience. If you've spent any time at the beaches in South County, whether it's Misquamicut, East Matunuck, Charlestown, or one of the quieter stretches of shoreline, it's hard not to compare the two. Oakland Beach just doesn't have the same wide-open feel, rolling surf, clean sand, or salt air that makes those beaches worth the drive. It's a bay beach, and it feels like one. That said, it isn't without its positives. The views across Greenwich Bay are pleasant, there were plenty of families out enjoying the afternoon, and it's an easy place to take a casual stroll. The boardwalk area and nearby restaurants give it more of a neighborhood gathering spot than a true beach destination. You can grab an ice cream, watch the boats, and spend an hour or two relaxing without much effort. The beach also has restrooms, parking, and easy access, so it's convenient if you're already in the area. What kept this from being a higher rating for me was the beach itself. The water looked murky compared to what I'm used to, the sand wasn't particularly inviting, and the whole area felt a little worn around the edges. It wasn't dirty enough to make me want to leave, but it also wasn't somewhere that made me think, "I can't wait to come back and spend the day here." I found myself appreciating the scenery more than the actual beach. Overall, Oakland Beach is perfectly fine for a quick walk before dinner or if you live nearby and want to enjoy the waterfront for a little while. I just wouldn't go out of my way to make it a beach day destination. For me, South County will always be where I head when I want to spend time at the ocean. Oakland Beach serves its purpose, but it never quite escapes the feeling that it's a pleasant neighborhood waterfront rather than one of Rhode Island's great beaches.

This space is right next door to Iggy's, beach, and the beach parking lot. They renovated and added…read morea playground and splash pad as of June 2025. It's a beautiful space with plenty of benches and picnic tables. There are playscapes and climbing structures; there are no swings. There is a gazebo and plenty of places to eat nearby. It's a great spot to let the kids play and have a picnic!

It is a nice beautiful little beach and body of water. I wanted to take my girlfriend somewhere…read morenice just to walk near Fall River and this definitely was a great place to take her and just enjoy the afternoon walk.

Beautiful spot to watch the sunset. Several benches and a few picnic tables available. On street…read moreparking or there is a lot across the street. Dog waste bags available. We are so lucky to live in this beautiful state.

The Bristol town beach has a lot going for it - friendly staff, tennis courts, basketball courts,…read moreplaygrounds, picnic space and of course a beach. The beach is New England rocky but clean. The water is New England rocky and murky but also very calm. Rocky beaches are meh but kids had fun. There's also a nice snack shop that has ice cream and sandwiches. The issue: it's a $30 dollar per car charge. I'm not against paying for access but the facilities are public so it's strange they'd charge that amount. Residents pay a lot less - like 10. That said there is a life guard , the beach was clean and there is staff to pay.

This a great beach to bring the kids but be prepared they need water shoes. No waves which makes it…read moresafer for the little ones. It's the bay not the ocean so there's plenty of rocks. It's clean and there is a lifeguard on duty. There's a area in the beach at the very end closer to colt state park that my kids call crab town. They like to explore . Between finding shells and crabs they come back with a array of collectables. The area has a ton of picnic tables and a covered area to eat under so bring a picnic and stay awhile. Along with that there is a nice size playground and volley ball net. It's attached to the sports complex which has a soccer field and a baseball field. If your on the bike path it's easy to ride to. They have a bike rack to secure your bike to. There is a skate park area as well. There's always some kids trying new tricks. Fun to watch. So as you have read there is more than a beach in this review but that's just the truth. :) check it out ! BTW it's $10 to park all day ! That's a pretty good deal.

Looking for some fresh air despite the frigid 18 degree weather, I found myself walking the Quonset…read moreBike Path to Calf Pasture Point Beach. Snow crunching underfoot, it was approximately 4 to 5 miles round trip from the parking lot at the bike path to the sand and waters, then back again. This was a peaceful jaunt... be it the weather or the distance from lot to beach. Maintained by the town of North Kingstown, this beach offers views of East Providence to Jamestown and southward. This natural habitat offers an abundance of wildlife. Birds galore! Gulls, ducks, hawks. I'm told that it is best to avoid this hike in times of high tide as it makes traversing the beach area difficult if not impassable. In seeing the water line today, I can assure you this is so. Beautiful sights, lapping waters. The sound of wind, waves, and waterfowl. A place to consider visiting.

I found this place years ago, but I always forget about it…read more Calf Pasture Beach is one of those hidden gems of Rhode Island because it doesn't have a lot of what people are looking for in a beach. First, you can't park at the beach. Unless you live in the neighborhood, the only way to access this beach is to park at the Davisville Bike Path parking lot and walk/bike the 1.3 miles to the beach. Second, there are no facilities here - no bathrooms, no food, no nothing. This is nature - beach, rocks, water, grass. For these reasons this is a place to go when we want to get away from it all. If you walk the loop (bike path to beach - walk the length of the beach - through the forest, back to bike path), it's about 4 miles. Take a towel and some snacks and make it a walk/swim for a nice day out. At the end of the day, you'll find a lot of locals clamming for their dinner.

We are here in Beautiful Goddard State Park for a week early Father's Day celebration with our five…read moreboys! This park is a vast well maintained full service state park in the smallest state in the union, Rhode Island! For a small fee, we rented a gorgeous little private shaded spot with two picnic benched and real bathroom facilities. We brought out food and a small grill to cookout. They did come check our permit, which you need to reserve to grill. Dell's lemonade truck is often present, so we treated ourselves to the famous Dell's frozen lemonade-yay! We were there a good 5 or 6 hours and it was a perfectly lovely and enjoyable day for our family to relax and enjoy our rare time to reconnect in person. What an invaluable experience. I can't stress enough having uninterrupted time with those you love. Cell service is non existent, so take this time to disconnect off the grid and just live and love. This place is a true simple gift-a Beautiful way to reconnect and just feed the soul. Take my advice, do it now, while you can. Make a happy plan before life makes other plans! Thanks for following me, Happy summer 2026! ~Tami from Miami

Beautiful, large park with many different sections. A great boardwalk by the narrow beach. A…read morewonderful place to take dogs, lots of benches to take rests, and an ample parking lot whose potholes were recently fixed, yay! Sometimes it's hard to find out what part of the park you're meant to meet someone in since there are so many sections. You can walk along the long beach or try a woodsy hiking trail. The trails on the right of the beach have either steps or a gradual slope to get up to the top of them, and you can look down over a small cliff to see the water below. The trails on the left of the gazebo are beautiful and give you many options, but people ride horses here, so be mindful of the droppings! This park has fantastic sunsets and multiple picnic areas, plus multi Porta potties that are usually in decent condition to use if needed. The bridge is great to look at, but can get crowded with families doing holiday photo shoots in the fall, so I've become wary of coming here since being stuck on one side of the bridge while a family made us wait to cross until they were done with pictures (ugh). I've come here for walks/hikes and even to wade at multiple times of year and always enjoy a beautiful day and peaceful experience here.

So we stopped by midday on a Thursday! (Mid March) and unfortunately the beach was completely…read moreclosed! Gated & no access. Disappointed :( it had good reviews and I didn't see any note about it being seasonal-only. Beach is located right next to. Large beautiful golf course & we were impressed driving up to the gates. Will try to stop back by when the season is right!

I've always loved it here and love it even more now that it's card access for RISD students and…read moreemployees.

This is a nice little beach with no waves. On the off season you can walk leashed dogs on the…read morebeach. It's a great place to visit off season and the water is clear enough to swim. On season, especially during the day, it's hard to visit because the parking lot is so small and all of the surrounding streets have no parking signs up. So you do run the risk of driving there and not getting a spot in their tiny lot.

Drove down to this beach and I was pleasantly surprised with so many parking spaces available…read more Majority of the area was clean with a few exceptions of plastic litter, wasn't anything crazy. Sunset views were incredible as well, very family friendly with a few toddlers enjoying the water. It's right against the parking lot so I would say it's friendly for those that can't go on stairs. Great new spot to read!

The restoration of the Oakland Beach Carousel is still progressing slowly but surely. The fund…read moreraising event last month was a huge success and the carving and painting of the horses continues to proceed. New horses, recreated from the old, historic photographs are being worked on by skilled and dedicated volunteers. The carousel still has years to go before it is completed but steady progress is being made. Hopefully, before too many years go by, Oakland Beach will have a replica of the 28 horses and building that once graced the the shores.

Really dedicated people. Volunteering their time and talents to replace the carousel formerly at…read moreOakland Beach.

I love this little beach in Bristol. We watch the 4th of July Parade here every year, and I believe…read moreit is one of the most scenic spots on the parade route. There is a large expanse of grass, several benches, and a large tree providing shade for those who want to sit peacefully and look at the water, read a book, or throw a frisbee or a ball around. There are three short stone staircases that lead down to the water. Two of the staircases lead down to beach areas with some small stones mixed in witht he sand, and one of the staircases leads to a rocky area. The waves here are very calm, making this a good beach for children and young families. I would recommend water shoes, as it is very pebbly. Such a beautiful spot!

Warwick Pond is an 85 acre pond in the middle of Warwick, just east of the T.F. Green Airport…read more There is a boat launch off of Wells Avenue for hand-carried boats, it's mostly street parking for anyone wanting to visit or to come for any water activities. This put-in is at a small park on the east side of the pond, and provides a suitable location for launching hand-carried boats. There is no parking lot, but there is roadside parking. There's a fence between the road and the park, with a gate leading into the park. Buckeye Brook flows out of the southwest corner of the pond and is large enough to paddle for some distance. The brook is very slow moving in this area so once you have gone as far as you want to you can reverse direction and come back upstream to the pond. The shoreline of the pond is largely developed. The brook feels less developed because of the wetlands that provide a buffer between the brook and the adjacent residential neighborhoods. This pond has ongoing issues with toxic algae blooms. Such blooms are most likely to happen in the summer. When there is an algae bloom people and pets should avoid contact with the water...just check the alerts put out by the RIDOH and DEM.

My boyfriend and I moved to Warwick about a year and a half ago, and have struggled with the fact…read morethat we don't own a pool and are fairly far away from the South County beaches (especially with traffic). Not deterred, we looked into beaches in this area and came across a few options. Of course we know that there's Oakland Beach, but I'm not a huge fan of salt water swimming and it's just not that great of an ocean beach. I remember visiting lakes all the time as a kid in northern Rhode Island...I figured that there must be SOMETHING comparable around here, so I did a quick Google search. It seems like there's three main freshwater swimming areas in Warwick...Warwick Pond, Gorton Pond, and Little Pond. Well, yesterday we decided to try out Warwick Pond as it's just down the street from us. After asking around, we discovered that, while there's no public beach on this pond, there's a place where people have access to the water for swimming and boat launching. Off of Lake Shore Drive, there's a little dirt road called "Wells Ave" on the map that goes right into the pond. It's not like you could go there and have a picnic, but it was fine for us! We parked on Lake Shore Drive, walked down, and hopped right in. Although a little murky and you should probably wear water shoes, the water was refreshing and perfect for a hot day. We want to try out the other two ponds as well, but we had a ton of fun just hanging out and swimming. We even saw some other people swimming there as well, and a few people came and launched boats while we were there. A pretty popular spot, it seems! One last thing to mention...while it was great for a short swim, somebody living in the area mentioned that the people living in the houses that are right next to this access road don't appreciate it when people get too loud. So it wouldn't be a good place for drinking or noisy late-night swimming -- mostly just for families, couples, solo swimming, etc.