America's Best Summer Towns: Bristol, Rhode Island

Welcome to Bristol, Rhode Island: home to American's very first Fourth of July Parade, innovative farm-to-table dining, four-poster bed and breakfasts, wildlife-rich nature reserves and 360-degree, picture-perfect views of Narragansett Bay. Twenty minutes from the Amtrak Station at Providence, Rhode Island (a two and a half-hour trip from New York's Penn Station on Acela), Bristol shares a long and complicated history with her coastal sister, Newport. Like Newport, Bristol was once home to some of the wealthiest industrialists in the country and was built on the early fortunes of some of America's most notorious slave traders—a back story that Bristol's museums and historians are eager to bring to light. Also like Newport, the houses, grounds and gardens of the Gilded Age's super rich are now museums open to the public.

But unlike her more famous sister, there's a quiet, community-focused simplicity to Bristol that travelers who crave authenticity and value will love. Lines and crowds are missing, homey friendliness and family-owned restaurants with to-scale prices are the norm. Bristol's backbone of Portuguese, Irish, and Italian immigrants—many of whom became local civic leaders and business owners in the past century—also sets it apart as a small town with quintessential American values. It's the perfect place to celebrate the Fourth of July—a tradition which began here in 1785—making it the proud home of our nation's very first birthday party.

Bristol has pride of place right the water at Bristol Harbor and Narragansett Bay. The unique confluences of fresh and salt water in and around the area attract a multiplicity of birds, sea mammals and tidal life. A long history of yacht and ship building as well as a still thriving small craft fishing industry make it a living coastal community. Its awesome views make it a haven for artists like the late actor and artist Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek) who lived and painted here. Best way to get your sea legs: take an afternoon lunch or sunset cruise ($450 for up to six people on a classic yawl—a two-masted sailboat) with Top Cat Sailboat Cruises and Tours.

Another great way to get your bearings around Bristol is to try the mostly flat and all scenic East Bay Bike Path, the first multi-town bike path built in Rhode Island. The bikeway travels 14.5 miles from India Point Park in Providence to Independence Park in Bristol and offers waterfront scenery inspiring enough to keep any cyclist going. Hearty bikers can also bring their bike on Amtrak and cycle from Providence to a weekend retreat in Bristol; cycle back, stow their bike on the train and have a summer getaway out of the city without ever getting into a car.

Bristol's historic Fourth of July Parade goes down red-white-and-blue striped Hope Street as it has every year since 1785. Prior to the parade, there are days of outdoor concerts, picnics, events, and numerous awards, including the "Longest Traveled" Award given to the person who has traveled the farthest to return to Bristol for the festivities.

Tradition, rather than trendiness, rules at the Bristol Harbor Inn, where rates start from $155 weekdays and $209 weekends (May through Oct). Bristol has a nice range of B&Bs, small hotels, and upscale accommodation. Rooms at the Harbor Inn are in walking distance to shops, restaurants, and museums and have those all-important maritime views. Don't expect to see an Aman Resort or a Four Seasons anywhere in the vicinity; old-school Yankee charm and four-poster beds are Bristol's calling cards.

Coggeshall Farm Museum, a living example of a tenant farm in the 1700s, is also home to picturesque open hearths where historical reinactors give "Hearth Cooking" workshops by appointment. The Farm Museum also shows off their wealth of heirloom chickens, hens, roosters and turkeys, some more colorful than tropical birds. Coggeshall's 48 rural acres are dominated by an original, restored farm house and by recreated period barns. Visitors can learn how some of America's first farmers grew their crops. The farm is one of the only area museums to celebrate the unnamed common men and women who surmounted uncommon odds to survive on Rhode Island's rocky shores.

The 28-acre McIntosh Wildlife Refuge has walking trails with a 1/4 mile wooden boardwalk--the kind that makes that great sound when you walk on it in flip flops--that trails through ancient fresh and saltwater marshland rich with bird life and great views of Narragansett Bay. The onsite Audubon Environmental Education Center is a educational natural history museum offering science geeks and their friends the opportunity to step inside the body of a 33-foot model of an endangered Right Whale and touch and hold real sea stars (they used to be called star fish) in its tide pool museum. There's also a rare blue lobster who will come out and wave his antennae at you in a friendly Bristol greeting.

Linden Place is an 1810 mansion museum that once belonged to James DeWolfe, a U.S. Senator and a notorious slaver. The house museum offers a "Tales of the Slave Trade" tour of the historic areas of Bristol Harbor and the town connected with DeWolfe's infamous trade in human cargo, ending at the DeWolfe Tavern, a current day bistro pub which was once the DeWolfe's rum distillery and Harborside warehouse. Although the house was connected with these tragic events in American history in its early days, its later years were less traumatic. It was once the home of Ethel Barrymore (Drew's Great Aunt) who married into Colt family (the makers of the Colt rifle) and here lived for a time before divorcing Mr. Colt and heading back to Hollywood. The Federal style interior of the house and its manicured grounds were also used by makers of the Robert Redford version of the Great Gatsby to stand in for Daisy Buchanan's Louisville mansion.

What trip to New England would be complete without a boiled or baked beauty like this one? The Harborside Lobster Pot has been shelling out this seaside staple since 1929. Along with classic treats such as lobster bisque come Mad Men-era cocktails such as Harvey Wallbangers and Sidecars. It's the perfect way to end a day at Rhode Island's shorefront—unless you're the lobster.