Cousins Beach in The Summer I Turned Pretty isn’t a real place you can visit, but it has clear inspirations and a real-world filming stand‑in.

Quick Scoop

  • In the story, Cousins Beach is a fictional Massachusetts beach town, strongly implied to be somewhere on or near Cape Cod.
  • Jenny Han has said she blended several East Coast spots: Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, the Hamptons, and places like Nags Head to create the vibe of Cousins Beach.
  • For the TV show, Cousins Beach is actually filmed around Wilmington, North Carolina, using beaches like Kure Beach, Carolina Beach, and Wrightsville Beach as the backdrop.

In-universe location

Within the show, a few clues point to Massachusetts and the Cape:

  • A character appears on “Good Morning, Massachusetts.”
  • Yarmouth, an actual Cape Cod town, is mentioned.
  • Articles breaking down the setting describe Cousins Beach as being on or near the Cape Cod peninsula.

So, in the lore , think: cozy Cape Cod–style New England beach town with big summer houses and small‑town charm.

Real-life filming locations

If you want to see “Cousins Beach” in real life, you’d go to coastal North Carolina:

  • Kure Beach, Carolina Beach, and Wrightsville Beach near Wilmington, NC, provide most of the beach and town shots.
  • The “Entering Cousins Beach” sign is placed in Southport, North Carolina, near the old Wilmington Cape Fear Pilots Association lookout tower.

These spots together create the on‑screen version of Cousins Beach you see in the series.

Why it feels so real

Jenny Han has talked about having “a lot of beaches” in her head when she wrote the books, mixing elements of multiple East Coast vacation towns.

That blend is why:

  • Readers and viewers feel like Cousins Beach could be their beach, even if they’ve never been to Cape Cod.
  • The town feels familiar but never matches one exact real location.

Think of Cousins Beach as a “greatest hits” compilation of dreamy East Coast summer towns, filmed in North Carolina but imagined as Massachusetts.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.