While in the vicinity of Maria Mitchell’s home, you should also consider some of the many other attractions nearby, including a large aquarium which is likely to be of particular interest to children, and also a research library, which is more likely to appeal to the adults.

Nantucket is a place which is not simply happy with preserving its history behind glass, opening the doors and letting you get on with it. In fact, almost every museum, building and point of interest can be enjoyed through tours, guides, workshops and demonstrations, with a wide range of summer bird watching walks, wildlife excursions, astronomy workshops and even lectures throughout the year. The more activities you book in advance, the more you save on discounted tickets.

There are several other museums well worth visiting, including the Lightship Basket museum which are unique to Nantucket, and come from its whaling heritage. At the Nantucket Lightship Basket museum you can enjoy a wide variety of workshops and lectures, and a fascinating garden waits to be explored within the grounds of the museum, which is itself a living museum, demonstrating a history of gardening and growing from the nineteenth century.

As mentioned previously, Nantucket’s strong Quaker movement in the nineteenth century resulted in the island becoming a haven for free black people and escaped slaves. As a result, the museum of African American History portrays a fascinating range of insights into the lives of the black people who lived on the island during the 18th and 19th centuries. A trail guide is available for you to enjoy exploring the locations of note and interest around the island, since much of the history can still be seen and explored on foot as well as enjoyed within the museums.

Naturally, since whaling was so much a very great part of Nantucket’s heritage, and the cause of its affluence in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it is only fitting that the Nantucket Whaling Museum should provide a very vivid and exciting tour of this dangerous industry. Children will be amazed by the enormous fifty foot sperm whale skeleton inhabiting this museum, and really brings alive just how vast these beats are, and how dangerous the whaling job really was. Right next to this museum is the, perhaps gentler, Peter Foulger Gallery, a fine exhibition of a wide range of paintings, textiles and other art forms, much of which depict very vividly the life and times of the island. Many ordinary but interesting household wares can be seen here too.