Adventures with Four Legs

New Bedford, a small city in southeastern Massachusetts, is a perfect dog-friendly day trip from Rhode Island. It’s an easy drive from Providence, RI to New Bedford, MA that takes about 45 minutes. Once you’re in the area of New Bedford, there are a ton of dog friendly activities. We couldn’t even do everything on my list in one day because we ended up enjoying and staying at a couple sites longer than expected.

Mattapoisett Rail Trail

Starting off, we headed past New Bedford in Mattapoisett to walk along the Mattapoisett Rail Trail (link). The weather was absolutely gorgeous and this 4.5 mile long path gives you views of Buzzards Bay, ponds and marshes, the town boat dock, and more. It really was well worth the travel to start our day with a good walk on this rail trail.

Once we got a good walk in we headed into New Bedford, Massachusetts (about 20 minutes from Mattapoisett).

Fort Taber Park & New Bedford Covewalk

We headed down to Fort Taber Park (link) to walk along Buzzard’s Bay and check out the various forts within the park. The forts themselves were interesting, but the real appeal was the great water views. The walking paths in Fort Taber connect to the New Bedford Covewalk (link) for amazing view along the water. There were so many people in the park and a lot of dogs. This park is really popular and clearly well-used.

It was great to walk a loop of the park and by the time we finished, Teddy was getting exhausted. Normally we try to break up the big walking parts of our adventures with more of a break, but the weather was so good and the path so enjoyable we couldn’t help but keep going.

Teddy loved greeting other dogs and had so much fun on this part of the adventure. When we were done walking, he was definitely ready for a break. At this point we’d walked about five miles and all of us were ready for a late lunch!

The Whale’s Tail Clam Bar

On the day trips that involve a lot of outdoor activity, we typically look for more casual places to eat and the Whale’s Tail Clam Bar (link) was both casual and delicious.

Business was brisk and it looks like the kind of place that will get super busy when the weather is gorgeous. It’s adjacent to both a small ice cream shop and a larger restaurant, the Black Whale (a restaurant with the same ownership as the clam bar).

I could easily see this being a place to chill out with your food on a gorgeous evening. The Whale’s Tail Clam Bar had a good selection of seafood and other standard clam shack fare (mostly fried, but some healthier options on the menu if you want to avoid fried foods) as well as a good selection of drinks including alcoholic beverages. I went with the fried shrimp and was really pleased! It was lightly breaded and delicious.

New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park

After we relaxed and enjoyed our late lunch at the Whale Tail’s Clam Bar, we headed across the street to visit the buildlings and sites that make up the New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park (link) . While Teddy-the-dog cannot go into the various buildings or the whaling musem, there is wayfinding signage and lots of historic architecture to appreciate without going inside the buildings.

This has been on my list to visit for a couple of years and it was really cool to see the sites in person. And I think Teddy enjoyed this activity as a winddown from the earlier walks!

We ended up spending over an hour walking what was less than three square blocks. If you’re considering visiting, it’s absolutely worth it.

By this point, we were all getting ready to wind down this particuly adventure so headed back to Rhode Island.

We ended up spending almost ten hours on this adventure which includes almost two hours of drive time, over six miles of walking logged, and one delicious meal. New Bedford was a fantastic dog-friendly day trip and this adventure is definitely one we’d want to repeat in the future.