Pull off Ocean Boulevard and you'll spot Foss Beach where most drivers speed past toward Wallis Sands or Jenness. The strand runs narrow here, hemmed by dark outcroppings that jut into the surf and collect tidal pools by midmorning. Gulls work the waterline while you spread your towel on sand that shifts from coarse to pebbly depending on the latest nor'easter.
“Foss Beach offers the rare combination of accessible roadside parking and genuine coastal solitude along one of America's shortest ocean frontiers.”
Credit: FlickrTamburello a Marina di Ragusa
The beach changes personality with the seasons. Summer brings families who claim spots early, coolers wedged against driftwood. Come October, you'll have the place nearly to yourself—just the rhythmic crash of whitecaps and the occasional jogger crunching through wrack left by high tide. Winter transforms the shore into a windswept gallery of ice-sheathed rocks and spindrift.
What keeps you coming back isn't dramatic topography or postcard sunsets, though both appear reliably. It's the unpretentious character of a working coastline where lobster buoys bob offshore and the horizon stretches unobstructed toward open ocean. You taste the brine, feel the pull of the undertow, and remember why New Hampshire's eighteen miles of shore matter despite their brevity.
