Wading In: The Great Ocean vs. Lake Debate

In which two Yankee editors choose sides in the ocean vs. lake debate—and then head off to a New England beach in search of common ground.

The Ocean Enthusiast | Amy Traverso, senior food editor

I am a beach person. Actually, that’s too mild a statement: I’m a beach junkie. I crave salt air and the scent of dune grass. The best sleep I know is a nap on a blanket in the warm sand. In my experience, there is no personal burden or worry that can’t be eased (or at least blurred at the edges) by proximity to the ocean. Isak Dinesen said it best: “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.”

I know that not everyone feels this way. My husband, a Florida native, wonders what could possibly be worth putting up with so much sand. He likes beach towns and vacations near the ocean, but he’d just as soon swim in a lake—a saltless, waveless, perfectly-fine-but-nontransformative lake.

I have swum and camped and floated on lakes and loved it. They’re nice. They’re beautiful. They don’t threaten. But nor do they scrub your soul clean. You set off in a boat on a lake and you’re still—forever—on that lake. On the ocean, we could be headed to Bermuda or Rome. We’d need a bigger boat, but we could be.

Surely, this is the objectively better option.

The Lake Defender | Ian Aldrich, executive editor

A few summers ago, against my better judgment, I took my young son to the ocean. We’d been weathering a torrid stretch of heat, and Calvin had spent most of his waking hours pleading for a beach day. So, on an especially hot Saturday morning, we loaded up the car and made the 90-minute drive from our home to Rye, New Hampshire. We schlepped our supplies—blanket, small cooler, towels, some beach toys I’d found in the garage—and set everything up.

Taking a seat, I looked around. At all the sand. At the beating sun. At the hordes of people. We were near the water, but not really. We’d been there maybe 15 minutes when I turned to Calvin.

“I can’t do this,” I told him. “I can’t be here. We have to go.”

Downcast and confused, he helped me pack. A half hour later we were eating lobster rolls in North Hampton, under the shade of a tall pine tree. Maybe we’d be home in time, I said, to go for a swim at the lake near our house. Calvin nodded glumly as if to say, How’d I end up with this guy?

As parenting moments go, it wasn’t one of my best. But I share it to illustrate just how much of a freshwater person I am. Lakes get dinged for being placid and calm, but that’s all part of their charm. The quietness grants the possibility to be still. To slow down.

An ocean day means work. You have to pack. You have to drive. You have to find parking. You have to stake out your plot of sand. And even then, you may not be free of a traffic jam of people “vacationing” right alongside you. If I want to toil uncomfortably for hours amid a crowd of strangers, I can go mall shopping. At least there’s air conditioning.

The Big Ocean vs. Lake Experiment

Can a lake partisan be converted to the joys of the ocean? Amy gives it her best shot, and shares the results below:

One summer day in Yankee’s offices, my colleague Ian tells me that not only does he prefer lakes, he hates beaches.

I know my mission. I will anticipate his every discomfort or complaint, including too little parking, too much sand, too cold water, too much schlepping, too much sun, and too many people. And I’ll make him see that beaches are better than lakes.

I don’t spend much time asking myself why I want so much to change his mind. Sure, perhaps I have a mild preference for achieving complete control over situations. Maybe when other people like what I love, it makes me feel smart (and I suppose I could unpack that if you have 50 minutes and take my insurance). Could there be just a hint of narcissism in all this convincing? I’m just asking questions here. I’m no expert.

Solving the parking problem is easy: Many public beaches now allow you to reserve a spot online. But the beach must also be beautiful. It must have bathrooms and showers. (No sandy feet for Ian!) I settle on Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which has all these facilities, plus a snack bar and a tidal creek at its southern end where the water is markedly warmer. At high tide, you can float down the creek under a footbridge and right into the ocean. And at this end, the beach is never truly crowded, even on weekends.

The next order of business is gear, and this is where I really stack the deck. I’ve already invested in a great shelter, large enough for two, in a jaunty blue-and-white cabana stripe. But I need to get Ian not just out of the sun, but off the sand, too. After a bit of searching, I find a collapsible hammock, sturdy and portable, with a total weight of about 20 pounds.

Then there are refreshments: I load a cooler with cold packs, nectarines, berries, fine cheeses, crackers, charcuterie, and cookies, as well as several flavors of seltzer. Finally, I buy a collapsible wagon with wide, beach-friendly tires.

After arriving at the beach, I’m piling everything into the wagon—rafts, shelter, hammock, food, suntan lotion, towels, beach chairs—as Ian finds my car, all smiles. “Hey, we got great weather!” he says.

As if there’s a single factor that I haven’t controlled for, I think. Like I didn’t check The Old Farmer’s Almanac first. But I just smile insouciantly.

The beach wagon is packed and feeling a bit heavy. But it rolls gamely along the parking lot and up to the edge of the sandy path that takes us to the creek. Two feet in and the wheels lock up, sinking a few inches. I pull harder, levering my body in search of traction. The wheels are, at best, sliding through the sand.

“Do you need some help with that?” Ian asks. Ha-ha, no! I’m good. I tug harder.

“I guess I overpacked,” I trill. Now I’m sweating. I am well and truly schlepping, and that will not do. But we will get this over with and he will forget. And if we eat enough, the cart will be much lighter on the way back.

I reluctantly accept Ian’s assistance, and we push-pull the cart down the longer-than-I-remember path to the creek and pick a spot by the water. I get busy putting up the shelter, again refusing help, unfolding the hammock, laying down a blanket, unfolding chairs.

Ian hops right into the hammock. “Wow!” he exclaims. “This is pretty great!” I wipe my brow and sigh with relief. I point out the ocean to our left and the cool-but-not cold creek before us, then inflate a raft and head into the water, if only to rinse off the sweat. Ian settles in with a book.

I paddle around in the creek for a bit and decide I need to chill out. At this point, I’ve done what I can.

And it takes very little time to see that Ian is really enjoying himself. Eventually he tells me it’s been a while since he’s lain around and simply done nothing. It’s a joy just to be still, he says.

The creek is now at high tide—prime floating hour—and we use the rafts to ride the swift current past the Bass Rocks Beach Club and into the waves. Soon, we’re elbow-deep in water, jumping on the backs of waves to ride into shore. We’re salty and silly; two overgrown kids.

When we get back to the shelter, I hand out snacks. It’s late afternoon and people have started packing up, but I explain to Ian that they’re missing the best part of the day, when the air and sand cool and the sky turns pink. We wait awhile.

“Well,” Ian finally says, “this is actually pretty delightful. I’d come back.”

At this point, I’m too relaxed to gloat. I gave my friend a good day, and that just feels nice.

But I do wonder: Without me acting as planner, sherpa, shopper, and guide, will he still like it?

Ian’s epilogue: I’ll admit it—Amy was as good an ambassador as the ocean contingent could have hoped for. For a few shining hours, yes, I loved the beach. When your afternoon consists of drifting down a tidal creek and having a plate of charcuterie at your fingertips, how could you chalk that up as anything but a great day? My only job was to arrive and hang out. It was like being at a lake … which, by the way, is where you’ll find me this summer. Because I’m not hauling any heavy cooler through the sand.

Where do you stand on the great ocean vs. lake debate? Let us know!

This feature was originally published as “Wading In” in the July/August 2025 issue of Yankee.

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