Fire Island
A 32-mile barrier island with no through road and almost no cars: you take the LIRR to one of three Long Island towns, then one of three separate ferry companies to your specific community, and once ashore you walk, bike or wait for a water taxi.
- Researched
- 29 September 2026
- Reviewed
- not yet
- Ways of moving
- 10, 18 sources
- Not confirmed
- 7
- Fares seen
- 2026
10 ways of moving, each with its rule
We confirmed eight ways of moving to, from or around Fire Island: one by rail and cable, one hired or on demand, five by water and one under your own steam, from 18 sources. Two entries are not a service at all but a rule that decides whether travel happens: a permit, a closure, a border, a season or an authority's say-so. Two of them run only on demand or when the seats are full, so there is no timetable to show; the rule is written where the timetable would be. Two need a phone call or a message before you turn up.
The fares were seen in 2026; a fare from an older year is a floor, not a price. Seven fares carry no year, because they could not be confirmed and the field says so. We rate 7 of the 10 high confidence, our own judgement of the sources. The entry was checked on 29 September 2026, and ends with seven things we could not confirm.
By rail and cable
LIRR Babylon Branch to Bay Shore, Sayville or Patchogue
Penn Station / Atlantic Terminal to Bay Shore, Sayville or Patchogue
Take the branch matching your ferry: Bay Shore for Fire Island Ferries, Sayville for Sayville Ferry Service, Patchogue for Davis Park Ferry
- When
- Regular Babylon branch service; check MTA LIRR timetable for exact times
- Takes
- About 1 hour from Manhattan to Bay Shore or Sayville
- Fare
- Undated: could not confirm current one-way fare (mta.info blocked both HTTP/2 and HTTP/1.1 browser-UA requests during research)
Seasonyear-round. Bookingnone, walk-up or app ticket. Run byMTA Long Island Rail Road.
Hired, booked and on demand
Taxi from LIRR station to ferry terminal
Bay Shore / Sayville / Patchogue station to the corresponding ferry dock
Taxi stands are outside each station; Tommy's Taxis also runs direct from Manhattan
- When
- on demand
- Takes
- 5-15 minutes station to dock
- Fare
- Undated (from a 2025-dated Wikivoyage edit): $18 one-way from Manhattan, $21 Sundays and holidays, for Tommy's Taxis direct service; local station-to-dock fare not confirmed
Seasonyear-round. Bookingcall ahead recommended, especially off-season. Run byTommy's Taxis and other local taxi firms.
By water
Fire Island Ferries (Bay Shore)
Bay Shore to Kismet, Saltaire, Fair Harbor, Dunewood, Atlantique, Ocean Beach, Seaview and Ocean Bay Park
Terminal at 99 Maple Ave, Bay Shore; each community has its own boat, check the departure board
- When
- Multiple daily departures in season, reduced off-season; exact timetable not published as static text on the operator site (loads via JavaScript)
- Takes
- Roughly 20-40 minutes depending on community
- Fare 2026
- 2026: one-way adult $13, child (2-11) $7, senior/handicapped/military $12; round-trip adult $25, child $13; 40-trip book adult $442, child $221; dogs charged a child's fare
SeasonYear-round to most communities; the operator's own service updates show weather can suspend individual runs (e.g. Atlantique service suspended for a day after a September 2026 nor'easter) even when the rest of the schedule resumes. Bookingwalk-up ticket or mTickets app; cash mostly, cards accepted at office. Run byFire Island Ferries, Inc.
Sayville Ferry Service
Sayville to Cherry Grove, Fire Island Pines, Sailors Haven and Water Island
Terminal at 41 River Road, Sayville; boats are boarded by destination, not shared
- When
- Multiple daily departures in season; live schedule loads only in-browser and returned no static timetable text to check
- Takes
- Roughly 25-40 minutes
- Fare 2026
- 2026 cash/card fares vary by community: Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove one-way adult $11.00/$11.39, round-trip $20.00/$20.70; Sailors Haven one-way adult $9.75/$10.09; Water Island one-way adult $18.00/$18.63, round-trip $34.00/$35.19; children, seniors, handicapped and dog fares are lower and listed per community
SeasonCherry Grove and Fire Island Pines serviced closer to year-round; Sailors Haven and Water Island are the more seasonal runs (not separately dated on the operator site - see gaps). Bookingwalk-up ticket; card fare is not the round-number cash fare. Run bySayville Ferry Service Inc.
Davis Park Ferry
Patchogue to Davis Park (about 20 minutes) and to Watch Hill (about 30 minutes)
Office in Patchogue near County Road 83 (Davis Park boat) and a separate terminal for Watch Hill on County Road 19
- When
- Scheduled daily departures; card payments use a separate boarding line at Davis Park
- Takes
- 20 minutes to Davis Park, 30 minutes to Watch Hill
- Fare
- Undated: the operator publishes conditions (card minimum $10, freight from $1.50 per piece, dogs $6.75) but no fixed one-way dollar fare list was found on the current site
SeasonMid-March to November per Wikivoyage; the operator's own site does not restate exact season dates. Bookingin-person purchase only, directly before boarding; tickets are not tied to a person and are non-transferable between this and any other Fire Island ferry company. Run byDavis Park Ferry Co., Inc.
Fire Island Water Taxi (lateral and crossbay service)
Point-to-point along the bay between Fire Island communities, and crossbay charters from mainland Long Island
Call to book; also sold through the Fire Island mTickets app
- When
- On demand; runs are the fallback when a scheduled ferry is missed on the western/central communities served by Fire Island Ferries
- Takes
- Minutes between adjacent communities
- Fare
- Undated: no fare list found published as page text; book by phone or app
SeasonRuns on demand year-round when conditions allow; the operator's own site posted a nor'easter notice suspending lateral service for a weekend and crossbay service from Friday afternoon in late September 2026, with Sunday service marked as-yet-undecided. Bookingcall 631-665-8885 to schedule a crossbay charter. Run byFire Island Water Taxi, LLC.
Freight boat and wagon service for residents' goods
Bay Shore (and other terminals) to island communities, separate from the passenger boats
Residents open a freight account through Fire Island Ferries' online freight portal to ship bulk goods; day visitors instead pay a per-item fee to carry a wagon or cooler through the freight gate on a passenger boat
- When
- Scheduled freight-boat runs, with a Saturday freight boat recommended to beat Sunday crowding
- Takes
- Same crossing time as the passenger route it parallels
- Fare 2026
- 2026: on passenger boats, wire carts $7, folding or Radio Flyer-style wagons $14, coolers up to 50 lbs $4 minimum, other essential items $2 minimum per piece; separate freight-boat account pricing is billed to account holders and not published as a flat rate
Seasonyear-round, heaviest in the summer move-in/move-out weeks. Bookingresidential freight accounts are set up online with a card on file; day-of wagon fees are paid at the gate. Run byFire Island Ferries, Inc. (Freight division).
Rules, permits and closures
Island-wide car ban - work and emergency vehicles only
All Fire Island communities except the drive-in state parks at each end
Not applicable - there is no public road network to drive on once past Robert Moses State Park or Smith Point County Park
- When
- constant, not seasonal
- Takes
- n/a
- Fare
- n/a
Seasonyear-round. Run byTown of Brookhaven and Town of Islip ordinances, enforced locally.
Off-season ferry contraction and road-end access
Robert Moses Causeway to Robert Moses State Park (west end); William Floyd Parkway to Smith Point County Park (east end)
Drive to either park's lot and walk onto the island from there; this is the only year-round vehicle access point
- When
- Ferries run a reduced winter schedule or stop on some routes; the two road-end parks are reachable by car year-round
- Takes
- n/a
- Fare
- Undated: parking fees are charged at both state/county parks but the current rate was not confirmed on this pass
SeasonFerries run mid-May to mid-October per NPS; outside that window travellers rely on water taxi or the two road ends. Bookingnone for the road ends; ferries reduce or suspend service in winter per operator updates. Run byNY State Parks (Robert Moses) and Suffolk County Parks (Smith Point); ferries as listed above.
On foot, by bike, or otherwise
Beach walking between communities
Along the ocean beach or boardwalks, community to community
Walk the beach at low tide or use each community's boardwalk system; some stretches (e.g. between Davis Park and Watch Hill) are the only connection since there is no road
- When
- always available, tide-dependent for some beach stretches
- Takes
- About 1/3 mile between Davis Park and Watch Hill; about 1 mile Watch Hill to Water Island; roughly 11.5 miles Davis Park to the Fire Island Lighthouse, mostly on the beach
- Fare
- free
Seasonyear-round. Run byn/a.
What we could not find out
7 things the researcher looked for and did not find, in their own words, with where to ask instead. None of this goes into the planner; it stays here until someone confirms it.
- 01
Current MTA LIRR one-way fares for Bay Shore, Sayville and Patchogue could not be confirmed: new.mta.info returned HTTP 403 on both an HTTP/2 default request and a retried HTTP/1.1 request with a full browser user-agent, so this is a genuine block rather than a false negative - ask at the LIRR ticket machine or on the app.
- 02
Sayville Ferry Service and Fire Island Ferries both render their live departure timetables only through client-side JavaScript; the page text served to a plain fetch says 'No Schedule to display at the moment' or omits times entirely, so exact daily frequency and first/last boat times are not confirmed here - check each operator's site in a browser or call ahead.
- 03
Davis Park Ferry publishes ride conditions and a note that discounted multi-trip pricing exists, but no dollar one-way fare figure is shown as static page text; ask at the Patchogue ticket window.
- 04
Historical hurricane/nor'easter damage (Superstorm Sandy 2012, January 2024 flooding that Patch and Newsday covered) turned up in a Google News search, but the News RSS links resolved only to news.google.com redirect URLs and would not resolve to the original publisher with a follow-redirect fetch, so those specific damage accounts are left out rather than cited to an aggregator.
- 05
Exact current parking fees at Robert Moses State Park and Smith Point County Park were not confirmed on this pass.
- 06
Correction to the brief: the 'seasonal shutdown' is not a single islandwide event - Fire Island Ferries and Sayville Ferry Service (serving Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines especially) run close to year-round with reduced frequency, while Davis Park Ferry and some Sayville-served communities (Sailors Haven, Water Island) are the more clearly seasonal routes; NPS states the mid-May to mid-October window applies to 'many visitors,' not to all ferry operations.
- 07
The last-mile hand-pulled wagon that residents use to haul freight from the dock to their house is manual, not a vehicle, so no listed kind (cargo_boat, cargo_truck, ferry) fits it directly; filed the boat side of the freight system under cargo_boat and left the on-foot wagon-hauling itself out as an option since it has no fare or schedule of its own.
What the planner can route today
The options above live on the place page, not in the departure board: a boat that comes when you phone has no time to show. What the board can do for Fire Island is this.
- Y
- Scheduled flightsNew York (JFK), 53 km
- Y
- Trains and coachesTransitous carries 5 timetable feeds for this country, 2 with real-time
- Y
- FerriesSeaview Ferry Landing, 0 km, Fire Island Ferries; sailings estimated
- Y
- Driving and taxiOpenStreetMap roads; cab fare from the country band
- N
- Bike and scooter shareno share feed known
- N
- Cruisesno open itinerary source anywhere
Y routable now · F found, not yet implemented · N no source known.