Montauk is a peninsula. Ocean to the south, Block Island Sound to the north, Fort Pond Bay tucked in behind. Pick the wrong side and you'll spend the day fighting shorebreak with a toddler.
Start Here
This is the only decision that really matters, and it is made for you by who you're bringing. Everything else is parking.
South-facing · Ditch Plains, Hither Hills, Kirk Park
Open Atlantic. Real surf, real shorebreak, real rip currents, and the wide sweep of sand people picture when they picture Montauk. Colder than you expect until late summer. This is where you want to be if you're swimming properly, surfing, or just want the horizon to be empty.
North & west-facing · Gin Beach, Navy Beach
Block Island Sound and Fort Pond Bay. Sheltered, shallower, noticeably warmer, and usually a few degrees less windy. Small children can stand up in it. Sunsets happen over the water here rather than behind you, which the ocean side cannot offer.
The Beaches
Tap what matters to you today. Beaches that don't fit will fade out.
The surf beach, and the closest thing Montauk has to a town square. A cobblestone point break that peels long and slow on the right swell, which is why it has taught two generations of New Yorkers to stand up on a board. Non-surfers come for the scene and the food truck.
A wide, guarded state park beach on the Napeague strip west of town, with the famous campground sitting right behind the dune line. The most straightforward ocean beach day available in Montauk: lifeguards, bathrooms, room to spread out, and enough sand that a July crowd doesn't feel like one.
The village beach. Walk from the train station, from the IGA, from most downtown lodging — five or ten minutes, no car, no permit anxiety. It is not the most beautiful stretch of sand in Montauk, and that is entirely beside the point when you're carrying a towel and a coffee.
On Block Island Sound beside the inlet at Montauk Harbor. Calm, shallow, warmer than the ocean, and with the added entertainment of the charter fleet running past the jetty all morning. The single best answer to "we have a three-year-old."
Tucked on Fort Pond Bay, west-facing, which in Montauk is rare and valuable. Shallow and warm enough to wade a long way out, and the one beach where the sun goes down over the water in front of you rather than behind the dune at your back.
A state park of bluff-top trails just east of the village, with wooden stairs down to a beach that is almost always empty. Two concrete bunkers left over from coastal defense sit in the scrub near the cliff edge. Come at sunrise; you will very likely have all of it to yourself.
Not a swimming beach, and this matters: the water off the Point is rocky and the currents converge hard. It is a place for tide pools, for surfcasters standing waist-deep in the wash, and for the view back up at the lighthouse. Wear real shoes. The rocks are slick and unforgiving.
Read This Once
Montauk's south-facing beaches take open Atlantic swell with nothing between them and the horizon. The water stays cold well into spring and warms slowly, peaking in late summer — September water is usually warmer than June water, which is the single most useful thing on this page.
Several of the beaches above have no lifeguard, and at the ones that do, the guards go off duty at the end of the season while the surf keeps working. If you are swimming outside July and August, swim like nobody is watching, because nobody is.
If you're pulled away from shore, don't swim against it — you will lose. Swim parallel to the beach until you're out of the pull, then come in at an angle. Rips are narrow. The panic is what drowns people, not the current.
And the one at the end: do not swim at Montauk Point. The currents where the Sound meets the ocean are genuinely dangerous, and the bottom is rock. Look at it, fish it, photograph it. Swim somewhere else.
Pack Accordingly
Not a packing list. Four things people consistently wish they'd brought.
The wind off the Atlantic doesn't care that it's August. Every Montauk beach is windier than the parking lot you left.
Browse →Ditch Plains has a cobblestone bottom and the Point is solid rock. Bare feet are a bad plan at both.
Browse →For May, June and October swimming. The locals wear neoprene long after visitors have given up on the water.
Wetsuit guide by month →Permits, park fees, and lots that fill before breakfast. Sort this out the night before, not in the car.
Parking and permits →Before You Go
Gin Beach or Navy Beach — both on the sheltered side, where the water is calm, shallow and warmer. If you want the ocean with a lifeguard, Hither Hills is the answer.
At many Montauk beach lots, yes — a seasonal Town of East Hampton permit, and non-resident permits are limited. Hither Hills is a New York State park with its own separate entry fee. Confirm what your lodging provides before planning a beach day around driving.
No. The bottom is rock and the currents where the Sound meets the ocean converge hard. It is a fishing and sightseeing spot, not a swimming one.
Cold well into spring, warming slowly, best in late August and September. The live reading at the top of this page comes from NOAA buoy 44017 off Montauk Point. Many locals consider September the best beach month of the year for exactly this reason.
Kirk Park, from the village, on foot. Ditch Plains is a reasonable bike ride. Everything else effectively requires driving — see the getting around section.
Rules vary by beach, by season and by time of day, and East Hampton enforces them. Off-season mornings are generally the permissive window. Check the current town regulations rather than assuming.
One email a month: when the water turns over, which beaches are guarded, and where the crowds aren't.
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