The small coastal city, after all, is the home of the United States Coast Guard Academy, and one of the many jobs the Coast Guard performs is caring for the country's lighthouses. You can visit the Coast Guard museum on the campus in the north end of the city to see and learn some of the history of lighthouses.

Then, you can travel four or five miles down along the Thames River on Pequot Avenue and you will drive right by New London Harbor Lighthouse. And as you look out over the water, you will see the imposing New London Ledge Lighthouse.

Shortly after passing New London Harbor Lighthouse, you will reach a point at which you can see at least four working lighthouses if you know where to look and there is no fog! They are the two aforementioned lights plus Race Rock Lighthouse, and Little Gull Island Lighthouse. You can also see a fifth lighthouse directly across the water from New London Harbor Lighthouse. It is the privately built, brown fieldstone, nonworking lighthouse on Avery Point.

If you continue to the end of Pequot Avenue and turn right to get to the parking lot of Ocean Beach Park, you will get a glorious view of Long Island Sound from the boardwalk. You will be able to see Ledge Light, Race Rock Light where the Atlantic and the Sound join, and Little Gull Island Light. If the day is clear, you will also be able to see still another lighthouse: Orient Point Light, a sparkplug shaped light.

The lights would be in the order mentioned going from your left (east) to your right (west). To the right of Little Gull Island is Great Gull Island and then Plum Island, at the end of which is Orient Point Light. The mass of land behind Little Gull Island is Gardner Island. If the day is really clear, you will be able to see the South Fork of Long Island behind Race Rock Light.