The National Seashore claimed this stretch in the 1960s, halting development and preserving what Truro residents already knew: Head of the Meadow is the Outer Cape's most unspoiled ocean beach. You'll walk past beach plum thickets and poison ivy tangles to reach sand that slopes gently toward waves powerful enough to demand respect. The shoreline shifts constantly—storms carve new cliffs into the dunes, exposing layers of peat from ancient forests.
“Two miles of National Seashore beach where shifting dunes reveal thousand-year-old peat deposits from drowned forests.”
Credit: FlickrOregon Coast wildflowers
The beach takes its name from the salt meadow that once sprawled behind these dunes, now mostly reclaimed by the sea. What remains is a landscape stripped to essentials: sand, grass, sky, and an ocean that can turn from flat calm to six-foot breakers within hours. Lifeguards patrol in summer, but come September, you'll have acres to yourself, sharing the strand with piping plovers and the occasional harbor seal.
Bring everything you need—there's a bathhouse and outdoor showers, but no snack bar, no rental umbrellas, no distractions from the fundamental experience of standing where land ends. The nearest coffee is a ten-minute drive south. The nearest Wi-Fi even farther. That's precisely the point.
