Nantucket Street Scenes (The Best Island in the World)

Nantucket Island, former whaling capital of the world, has preserved many of the former sea captain homes in the downtown area. Preserved as well are the cobblestone streets. Here are a few photos of the downtown area. The brick Pacific National Bank has an interesting mural in the lobby area but they wouldn't let me photograph it. I was thinking maybe they though I was doing advance work on a potential bank robbery (not that I would) but then thought they probably wanted to protect the privacy and identity of their customers.

National Geographic has named Nantucket Island "the best island in the world". Now. I don't know if that would be my opinion not having been to all the world's islands but it definitely is a nice place to visit. I know a million dollars doesn't go too far on Nantucket and I have met many "caretakers" during my home insurance inspections that appear like "regular people" who meet me for inspections for home owners who have seasonal and second homes on Nantucket. They tell me, "Oh, my property is probably worth two million or so, but I don't want to sell as I like the lifestyle over here and it is a good place to raise my family". The problem with selling your property if you live on Nantucket and want to stay there is that most other properties are of similar price range so you can only realize your value if you decide to leave Nantucket and live somewhere else.

Nantucket is pretty well kept up with minimal litter and no real "slummy or shanty town areas". There is a land bank in place where a percentage of each real estate transfer at the "closing "is assessed and the monies collected from this transfer assessment are used to purchase land for conservation so that the island doesn't become overly developed. This makes each property on the 14 mile island retain a high market value.

My only concern if I were to live on Nantucket would be the planning needed to leave the island whether by boat or plane as you just can't drive off Nantucket unless you have one of those "amphibious cars" which I don't think I would trust as Cape Cod is about 30 miles away and you wouldn't want to risk getting "swamped" by a big wave. I suppose if you had a helicopter at your disposal you could come and go as you please.