Family vacation touched by retro simplicity

It’s true that Route 28 is one of the Cape’s busiest roads, but once you have crept through the stop-and-go traffic to the motor inn, everything you will need is within a 2-mile stretch of the highway east of Route 134 or along a few perpendicular residential streets. If you are willing to walk or bicycle (bring your own), you won’t even need that minivan.

A week before Memorial Day weekend, Sue Hilbert, who runs Holiday Hill Motor Inn with her brothers Tom and Robert Baroni, was looking forward to her first summer on the Cape in 40 years. “I started working at the mini golf when I was 10,’’ she recalled, but grew up to move to Ithaca, N.Y., to work and raise her family. “There are only lakes there,’’ she sniffed dismissively. “I missed the smell of the ocean. When I first returned here, I walked a different beach every day.’’

But families, especially those with younger children, might barely want to leave Holiday Hill. The 57-room motel (plus a small cottage and four-bedroom Victorian house) attracts its share of senior citizens, a few honeymooners, and budget-minded European travelers, especially during shoulder seasons when school is in session. A young Jay Leno even stayed here (in Room 7) when he played comedy gigs nearby. But the place has always been set up with families in mind. Rooms all have large televisions, small refrigerators, and — in a nod to the 21st century — free Wi-Fi.