Cliff Walk
National Recreation Trail · Newport, Rhode Island
A three-and-a-half-mile public footpath along the eastern shore of Aquidneck Island, with the open Atlantic on one side and the back lawns of the Gilded Age mansions on the other. It exists because Rhode Island shoreline rights predate the estates, so the owners of the largest houses in America could not close the path across their own cliffs. It is free, it is the best thing in Newport that costs nothing, and about a third of it is rougher underfoot than the photographs suggest.
175 Memorial Boulevard, Newport, Rhode Island, 02840, United States
FREE and open daily, dawn to dusk, year round. There is no gate and no ticket. ⚠ A SECTION BETWEEN NARRAGANSETT AVENUE AND WEBSTER STREET IS CLOSED with a signed detour around one block of Salve Regina University — the City of Newport words it "for the foreseeable future" after a twenty-foot collapse just south of the Forty Steps in a December 2022 storm, and it remains shut for the 2026 season. Roughly $22M in state and federal funding is committed and the work awaits coastal-regulator approval. CHECK THE CITY PAGE BEFORE TRAVELLING. Free parking at the Memorial Boulevard trailhead; seasonal restrooms and water at Narragansett Avenue.