Public Guided Tours
Our regularly scheduled public guided tours run June and through early October.
Main Street tours are offered weekly on Tuesdays at 3 PM, and ‘Sconset tours are offered weekly on Thursdays at 3 PM. Please see below for additional details about each tour. Public tours are $15/person, or $10 for NPT Members with your annual member discount code.
*Private tours are available year round for a minimum of $250. Please call 508-228-1387 or email info@nantucketpreservation.org for more details.
Advance registration is required for all NPT tours. Registration is now open!
Note: in the event of inclement weather, tours will be cancelled and refunds will be issued.
A Walk Down Main Street
NPT’s classic tour provides an overview of Nantucket in its heyday and focuses on the portion of Main Street between the Pacific National Bank and the Civil War Monument. Learn about the street’s development and the area’s early residents and architectural styles, as well as how the houses have come to symbolize the island’s whaling era. Participants in the 75 minute tour will receive a copy of the NPT’s highly acclaimed history, A Walk Down Main Street. Tours meet at 11 Centre Street on Tuesdays at 3 PM, through October 8.
‘Sconset Tour
Join NPT Executive Director Mary Bergman, who shares her knowledge of this unique fishing settlement at the eastern edge of the island. The 75 minute tour focuses on the early “whalehouses” as well as the village’s boom as a seaside resort and actors colony at the end of the 1800s. Tours meet at 1 New Street, Siasconset, Thursdays at 3 PM through October 10.
Note: Due to NPT special events, there will be no tours on July 4, July 25, August 8, or September 25.
Self-Guided Walking Tours
Codfish Park Walking Tour Brochure
In Codfish Park, little houses tell big stories. Learn about the evolution of Codfish Park and its important role in Nantucket’s Black history and labor history. This brochure shares details on the evolution of the ‘Sconset neighborhood in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. (Brochure PDF)
A Stroll in the Union Street Area
A walk from Main Street down Union Street is filled with historic houses. This short tour is adapted from the 2010 Summer Kitchens House Tour of the neighborhood. (Tour PDF)
Vestal Street and its notable residents
The small lane south of Main Street now named Vestal Street was known as Prison Lane in the late eighteenth century and included the Town Hall (once located at the corner of Milk & Main), jail (along Vestal) and poor house (once found at Quaker Lane). (Tour PDF)
“Master Mariners, Whaling Wives, and Tradesmen of the Whaling Era”
NPT’s house-marker program provides the passerby with information about past Nantucketers and their houses. Betsy Tyler, historian and local author, researched a handful of these houses from the Whaling Museum to the Civil War Monument, for a stroll of about an hour. (Tour PDF)
A Walk Down Broadway
A visit to Nantucket is not complete without a walk around ’Sconset’s historic core. We hope this brief review of some of ’Sconset’s earliest cottages will whet your appetite for exploring this extraordinary village. (Tour PDF)