The north end of Drakes Island is a quiet neighborhood, with just one row of cottages on either side of the street, and a few more behind by the pine wood. Look for hedges of pink and white rosa rugosa, the occasional puff of hydrangea, drifts of sea grass, and summer lawns. The sandy beach is a half-mile long, with a river at either end.
When I was a small child, ours was the last cottage on the road. Even now, a dozen houses past this one, there's nothing but dune, beach, and then the Little River, where children float by on inner tubes, and the plovers and terns are protected by law.
Most people never leave the sand and water, but you really should take a walk up to Laudholm Farm, with its seven miles of trail and boardwalk along the salt marsh and up the hill through the old apple orchard to the great barn, the estuary research center, and the big yellow house ( open to the public).
It's all right out your door. Heaven, with the murmur of surf.