Do you want your getaway with your best girlfriends to be filled with beautiful art, awesome music, and engaging theater? On the Cape, you can easily mix arts and culture in with the usual girls’ weekend activities like indulging at a wonderful spa and eating fantastic food. 

Here’s our top ten recommendations (in no particular order) for fun cultural experiences during your weekend, vacation, or day trip with your favorite women. 

1. The Cotuit Center for the Arts is a welcoming hub for Cape Cod’s artists, performers, students, and audiences, working together to make the creation and experience of art accessible, nurturing, and thrilling to all. The Cotuit Center boasts gallery, main theater, black box theater, and classrooms, featuring amazing curated art shows, outstanding plays and musicals, off-beat black box productions, and an enormous range of fun classes across the arts. The Cotuit Center’s calendar is jam packed all year round, so whenever you plan your girls’ getaway, be sure to look up what’s on at Cotuit.

2. The Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) has a permanent collection of over 3,000 pieces created by over 700 artists on the Outer Cape. The building itself is beautifully designed to fit perfectly into the Provincetown neighborhood, with the stunning sunlight-filled white interiors a backdrop to spectacular art. The fine art exhibitions continually change and offer visitors a chance to enjoy one-of-a-kind artwork. You and your friends can wander in the three outdoor sculpture gardens. Special events and activities include lectures, auctions, and workshops in painting, printmaking, drawing, mixed media, and sculpture.

3. The Yarmouth New Church is not a church, but a repurposed church building on the Yarmouth Port Common that’s now a vibrant cultural center. They present concerts by fantastic local musicians – check out their schedule to see what music is on when you’re here. The New Church also features generous gallery spaces with exhibits showcasing local artists working in all media. The building was constructed in 1870, and is one of the finest surviving examples of American gothic architecture in New England. The Yarmouth New Church Preservation Foundation has worked tirelessly with community support to restore this historic building, an artwork in itself.

4. You and your pals can take a yoga class together at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, another former church that has been successfully repurposed into a hub for art, culture, and community in the heart of the village, and then hear a great band perform there at night. Perform or listen to others at an open mic night, attend an artist reception, or go to a community fundraiser in support of an important local cause. The gallery features extraordinary visual art works; the theater hosts dance, plays, and independent film screenings; and the Hall also holds special events, a craft bazaar, a farmer’s market, and funky dance parties.

5. Nestled in the dunes of Truro and within walking distance to Cape Cod Bay, Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill holds a range of week-long workshops, including drawing, painting, photography, writing, culinary arts, dance, and ceramics, led by distinguished faculty. With your girlfriends, you could spend a week studying a new art form! Truro Center for the Arts also presents special events, including concerts, a dance festival, auctions, storytelling, and art lectures, and hosts gallery shows of highly regarded artists with opening receptions. 

6. The Cultural Center of Cape Cod serves the entire Cape community and visitors to the area with classes, entertainment, and exhibitions. With five galleries, a performance hall, a gift shop, and an Education Wing that features a culinary arts center, recording studio, pottery studio, makerspace, and digital arts studio, you’ll definitely find something, or more than one thing, to do here! Take a cooking class, attend a reading, learn how to garden or to make a bowl. Year-round events include concerts and open houses for new visual arts exhibitions.

7. Highfield Hall and Gardens in Falmouth is both a historic estate and a vibrant cultural center surrounded by restored gardens, peaceful walking trails, and conservation land. Their mission is to honor the beauty and historic significance of the house and grounds by providing high-quality artistic, cultural, and educational programs. You can view the fine arts exhibitions; hear a jazz, bluegrass, or folk concert; or take a meditation, cooking, or gardening class. Or take a guided  tour of the Hall, built in 1878, or of the Gardens, all of which was saved from the wrecking ball and magnificently restored.

8. Located on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean in North Truro, the Payomet Performing Arts Center tent is at the Highlands Center in partnership with the Cape Cod National Seashore. More than 40 concerts each year include GRAMMY winners, internationally renowned artists, up-and-comers, and legends. Payomet presents live theater productions that showcase emerging professional actors. Plus, the Payomet Big Top Tent nearby is home to their amazingly talented professional circus troupe, Cirque by the Sea. During the off-season, Payomet produces concerts and events at venues from the mid-Cape to Provincetown.

9. Art’s Dune Tours take you through the protected lands of the Cape Cod National Seashore in an SUV with knowledgeable guides. In addition to the glorious views across the dunes and the ocean, you’ll see the shacks where many famous artists and writers have worked, including Eugene O’Neill, Jackson Pollock, and Jack Kerouac. The shacks are still in use today as retreats for a wide variety of artists, including painters, playwrights, and photographers. You’ll learn about the history and ecology of these stunning dunes that remain such an inspiration. Add on a watercolor painting class, so that each of you can create something special to bring home!

10. The Cape Cod Center for the Arts is one of the oldest arts centers in the country, located on a lovely 23-acre campus in Dennis village. The Cape Cod Museum of Art, the Cape Playhouse, and the Cape Cinema are all found here, making it a thriving hub for culture. The Cape Cod Museum of Art was founded in 1981 and has seven splendid galleries featuring the work of the Cape’s finest artists and art inspired by this special place. The Cape Playhouse is the longest-running professional summer theater in the country, and presents the highest quality live theater productions with Broadway actors every year. The Cape Cinema has been showing first-run movies since 1930, and also broadcasts operas, theater, and ballet. You and your pals could view exceptional artwork in the morning, take a lunch break, catch a movie, and after a great dinner, see a play or musical. 

You and your friends can also browse and shop in art galleries in just about every town from one end of the Cape to the other. Cape Cod is a remarkable hub for the arts, and if you want a dash of culture in your girls’ getaway, the Cape is the perfect destination!

For places to stay on the Cape, click here. For dining options on the Cape, click this link. And for additional things to do during your visit to the Cape, click here.