Providence/Warwick has great parks for outdoor activities year-round

You get to Goddard Park via a long country road flanked by a handsome stone wall and surrounded by old farmland, scattered clapboard houses, and glimpses of golf courses. By the time you reach the park you are primed to enjoy its spacious lawns, fields, walking trails and forested areas. Visitors can play at a nine-hole golf course, ride 18 miles of bridle trails from an equestrian show area, and play on a sandy beach. There are plenty of picnic tables, 11 game fields, and a performing arts center for weddings, concerts, and special events.

The 126-acre city park, located beyond quiet neighborhoods of older homes, covers the end of a snub-nosed peninsula surrounded by two quiet coves, with views across a small cove of the Little Rhody Boat Club. The park is popular for its salt water beach; served by a bathhouse; softball fields; picnic areas with shelters, good for larger family gatherings and parties. Additionally there are  three miles of paved paths, used by bicyclists and runners, and fenced dog park. Legend has it that the first clam bakes took place here in the late 1800s.

Located on a pointed outcrop of land in the upper part of Narragansett Bay and in view of the more-northerly Conimicut Point Park and its lighthouse, this 124-acre park is the former home to Rhode Island’s largest and most famous amusement park, active from the mid-19th through the 20th centuries. The park has walking path along the coast, places for fishing, and good spot for family gatherings. The new fishing pier will consist of a 260-foot-long wooden walkway leading from the existing blacktop path out to a 21-by-111-foot main deck elevated 13 feet off the water’s surface.