It’s summer! So it’s time to step up the field trips. Send in a suggestion or take some good pics the next time you are out of town (or in a far flung part of town) and send them my way. This contribution is from my neighbors Liina Pylkkanen and Alec Marantz, who along with their son, Nooa, are masters of the staycation. (Liina is also a great photographer.) They don’t drive, so their trips are always within train distance or, in this case, ferry.

THE DESTINATION
The Rockaway Hotel, Rockaway Beach, Queens

THE JOURNEY
By subway: 1 hour 6 minutes by the A to the S + a short walk
By NYC Ferry: 55 minutes from Wall Street/Pier 11 to Rockaway + a three-block walk

THE HOTEL
Liina and fam stayed overnight, but if you don’t want to book, you can do a daytrip during the week (Monday to Thursday) and use the hotel grounds for $40. A lounge chair costs $100 for a four-hour shift, and for the deluxe version, you can rent a poolside cabana for $750. See those rates here.

The hotel has gotten a bit pricier since I checked when Liina went in April — now rooms for two start at $325. Here’s from Liina: We really like the hotel’s easy accessibility by public transit and the whole rugged-meets-lux-meets-Scandi-design vibe. The pool was already open and heated when we went in late April, which Nooa LOVED. (They also went last November, when the hotel first opened, and this past Memorial Day.)

PIT STOPS
The hotel has three food options: The Rooftop, The Pool House and Margie’s. From Liina: The Pool House was a well-ventilated sheltered option and it was also so nice to have live music.

Whit’s End: A very edgy place serving mostly pizza. Its décor is very adult, which we knew from last time (we took out pizza for the beach in November), but took Nooa anyway since he was already mentally prepared and just finds it funny. But I guess I wouldn’t GENERALLY recommend it for families with kids. Many menu items have a curse word in them (though interestingly not on their website).
Other dining recos I got from the ladies in the coffee shop attached to the hotel were Pico for Mexican, Uma’s (Central Asian) and Bungalow Bar (huge outdoor scene with water views and tiki bar, starting at noon).

PRO TIPS
We used their adult bikes and brought Nooa’s bike on the ferry (they don’t have kid bikes).
The boardwalk is peppered with pretty good playgrounds so that is great for kids.

Previous Field Trip posts:
• Domino Park
• The Five Bridges
• Lower Manhattan as Black History
• The Empire State Trail
• Anthony’s Nose in Cortlandt, NY
• Croton Gorge Park
• Rollerskating in Brooklyn Bridge Park
• New Paltz, NY
• The Seaport
• Rockaway Beach
• Astoria Park Pool
• Bike into Fire Island
• Beacon, NY
• Riverside Park South
• Long Island City
• Two Bridges
• Governors Island (Reprise)
• Storm King Art Center
• Red Hook
• Sunset Park
• Bay Ridge
• ICP Museum
• Noguchi Museum & Socrates Sculpture Park
• The Fisher Landau Center for Art
• The High Bridge
• The Broad
• Crown Heights
• Spuyten Duyvil
• New York Botanical Garden
• Bed-Stuy
• The New Whitney Museum
• Bushwick-ish
• The Rockaways
• Greenpoint
• Wave Hill
• Governors Island
• F.D.R. Four Freedoms Park
• Litchfield County, Conn.
• One Wall Street
• Behind the Scenes at Grand Central Terminal
• The Howard/Crosby Microneighborhood
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York
• East River Ferry
• Museum of American Finance