Rose Island Lighthouse is one of about 175 lighthouses still standing in New England. It is one of dozens open to visitors, and one of several with accommodations for overnight guests.
In Port Cyde, Maine, you can drive out to the end of the road to visit the Marshall Point Lighthouse, where actor Tom Hanks ran across the lawn as Forrest Gump. The brick-and-granite lighthouse tower stands on its lonely perch atop a gray rocky cliff. Behind it is the handsome, late 19th-century Colonial Revival building where the keeper lived. The first floor now houses a small historical museum, with artifacts like a brass steam whistle from the concrete steamer Polias, which wrecked nearby in 1920.
Says volunteer David Percival, ''From May to October, we get over 14,000 visitors, and we're not close to anything."
In Stonington, Conn., the Old Lighthouse Museum, the solid, 1840 stone tower and keeper's dwelling, has six rooms of exhibits, many of interest to children. Climb the spiral steps to the tower, and look out to Montauk on Long Island, 17 miles away. Walk over glass sections in the ground floor and peer down into the lighted cistern and well below.
''It doesn't matter how courageous visitors are, they still step around rather than walking over it," says museum director Louise Pittaway. ''The cistern freaks them out the most."
Some lighthouses are easily accessible, like the one in Stonington, which is right in town with a parking lot just a few doors away. Still, each year, thousands of visitors venture out even to the lighthouse on 64-acre Seguin Island, 12 miles downriver from Bath, Maine. It takes nearly two hours to reach by boat, and the views are often limited. It is known as one of the foggiest spots in the United States. Seguin Island Light Station, one of the oldest in the country, was commissioned by George Washington in 1795.
