Manhattan · The East End · Est. MMXXVI · No. 1
Every passage from Manhattan to the Hamptons, charted.
Seven ways cover the hundred-odd miles east — a private car to your door, a forty-minute helicopter, a seaplane off the East River, the Long Island Rail Road, the Hampton Jitney, your own wheels down the Expressway, and the slow ferry through Shelter Island. Choose a passage below and watch it ink itself across the chart from Midtown to the village of your choice. Then read the times, the fares and the trade-offs for all nine destinations.
The seven passages
Plates I–VIIThe gazetteer
Nine destinations, west → eastWesthampton Beach
82 miThe first village past the canal — a walkable Main Street and wide dune beaches.
Quogue
84 miHushed, leafy and deliberately low-key, wrapped around a wildlife refuge.
Hampton Bays
88 miWorking harbors, Ponquogue Beach and real value beside the estate towns.
Southampton
96 miThe grande dame — hedgerows, estate rows and the shops of Jobs Lane.
Bridgehampton
101 miFarm fields, the summer polo grounds and a blink-and-miss Main Street.
Sag Harbor
104 miA former whaling port turned wharf-side village with real maritime bones.
East Hampton
106 miThe marquee village — Main Beach, the pond, and the region’s busiest airport.
Amagansett
108 miSurf, the clam shacks and a smaller-scale beach-town feel.
Montauk
120 miThe end of the island — the lighthouse, the surf breaks and a fishing-village core.
From the entries
All entries →Hamptons beach parking permits, by town
Nearly every ocean-beach lot on the East End is permit-controlled in summer. The rules vary by town and village, and a non-resident's options range from a daily fee to no access at all.
field noteRiding the Cannonball: the LIRR's reserved summer express to the East End
A seasonal reserved-seat express that runs the Hamptons line Thursdays and Fridays, reaching Westhampton in roughly an hour and a half with no road exposure.
seasonalReading the Summer Friday: when to leave Manhattan for the East End
The single variable that decides every eastbound passage from June to September is the Friday-afternoon wall on NY-27. Here is how to plan around it.
field noteGetting Around Once You're Out East
Arriving by train or bus solves the journey but not the destination. A look at shuttles, taxis, app rides, bikes, and the short hops that move travelers between the East End villages.
field noteSeaplane vs. Helicopter to the East End
How the amphibious seaplane and the helicopter differ on departure point, landing, weather tolerance, and cost on the run between Manhattan and the Hamptons.
dossierBest Summer-Friday Car Services to the Hamptons (2026)
A reference ranking of the nine private car operators best equipped to handle the summer-Friday eastbound crawl to the Hamptons, weighed on flat pricing, dispatch, and corridor command.
The number worth keeping
Every timetable has a gap. A car doesn’t.
Miss the last Cannonball, arrive with a family and a week of luggage, or simply refuse the summer-Friday crawl, and six of the seven passages quietly stop being useful. The seventh bends to your clock — a private car, Manhattan curb to East End door. We book nothing and earn nothing on it; we just keep the dispatcher’s number where you can find it.
Hire a car
The dispatch register
When a passage won’t bend to your schedule, these are the dispatchers worth keeping by the telephone — entered in the almanac’s own order of preference.
Detailed Drivers
Door-to-door Manhattan-to-Hamptons sedans, SUVs and Sprinters; flat all-in pricing, flight-tracked, 24/7 dispatch.
Hamptons Limousine
Southampton-based; round-the-clock airport and point-to-point service across the South Fork.
North Fork Luxury Transporters
East Hampton and HTO-airport transfers, plus executive runs back out to the city.
The almanac sells no rides and earns nothing on these calls; the order is editorial. Confirm the rate when you ring.