Salisbury Beach, MA
Visited on March 09, 2002
Directions from Lawrence, MA – 495 North, Exit 55. Take 110E to Route 1A. Driving time is about 40 minutes.
A really long beach, lot of waves and sand. It was windy, the wind was cold. Several people had brought their horses and were riding them on the beach. Lots of houses and condominiums on the beach front.
Plenty of parking in Salisbury Beach State Reservation. When you drive into the Reservation, there is a straight road with beach and ocean on one side and a marsh on the other. A few people were bird watching over the marsh.
There is a sign that says you can see harbor seals from Sep-May, but I didn’t see any.
There are campsites in the State Reservation. The campground is a flat ground with 3 or 4 straight paved roads running through them. These roads have small pine like trees on either side. Camp sites are close to one another and are sitting in the open ground. There are spaces for both RVs and tents. Very close to the water.
There is a beach boardwalk type of place with pizza stores and amusements for children.
From the campgrounds, across the backwaters, there was land with houses. I don’t know if it is an island. If not, the backwaters would be a bay.

Visited on June 08, 2002
The day was warm and we spent a lot of time on the beach. All three of us went this time and spent the afternoon and evening there.
The food stalls were pretty bad, we got slice of pizza for gubbi. I had coffee, it was really bad. There is a little amusement park and we went on a few rides. My wife went with our child on a rotating cup merry-go-round and felt really sick.
The town is run down and the strip of food stalls (selling pizza, bad coffee and fried dough) by the beach were low budget and people visiting the beach were mainly working class.

Hampton Beach, NH
Visited on March 09, 2002
Continue on Route 1A North from Salibury beach to reach Hampton Beach, in a few miles you will go through Seabrook and then reach Hampton beach.
Beach is as good as Salisbury beach, but there was no wind at the beach at the southern end of the town. This part of the beach had fine white sand. There are lot of hotels/motels on the beach here than in Salisbury beach.
Saw a billboard for Whale Watching and kayaking. There is a backwaters area with calm waters. I suppose one could go kayaking there as well as on the open ocean.

Visited on June 08, 2002
Drove through the Hampton Beach before heading back home. The beach road was full of young people on foot and on bikes. This place looked like it attracts a lot of young college crowd.

Visited on June 23, 2002
Another warm day. Went to see the sand sculpture contest. The sculptures were done close to the road along the beach, they were good. Parking is metered and is 25 cents for 10 minutes. The tide was low and the beach is flat for quite some distance into the ocean.
My daughter and I played in the waves, she pretended she was surfing(we had seen Lilo & Stitch recently). Unlike our previous visit, we came prepared with bathing suits.