Approach it riding a nausea-inducing ferryboat, and Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, rises from the Atlantic haze like a vision from the past, all massive wood framed hotels with porches and mansard roofs. Ashore, families biking together along the streets only add to the sense that the island is a throwback to an earlier age.

This can be a positive. A movie ticket at Block Island’s Empire Theater (17 Water St., 401-466-2555) costs a mere $8.50 and is preceded not by endless commercials but rather by a live song-and-piano performance.

Go to the typical non-Block Island beach somewhere else these days, and it’s a hassle. You need a resident parking sticker or a non-resident parking sticker or you have to pay to park in a lot. Once out of the car, you tromp by endless signs about swimming at your own risk and lifeguards being on- or off-duty and not disrupting the delicate dune grass that is a nesting area for rare birds and remembering to apply sunscreen because ultraviolet radiation can give your children skin cancer.

At Block Island, on the other hand, you pull your car off the road, park by the beach for free, and plop yourself down in the sand, which is blessedly unmarred by warning signs of any variety.

Likewise, Block Island is thick with so many ice-cream parlors, and of such high quality, that it’s clear that the news about fat, cholesterol, and heart disease hasn’t made it there. For chocolate lovers, the “chocolate assault” flavor at Aldo’s Bakery (Weldon’s Way, 401-466-2198) – chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and enormous chunks of chocolate fudge ($3.50 for a single scoop) – is not to be missed. The Ice Cream Place (401-466-2145), across Weldon’s Way from Aldo’s, offers a hot-fudge sundae ($4.90) that is among the best I’ve ever tasted, which may be one reason the place is so swamped with customers that it has had to bring in ice-cream scoopers from Eastern Europe to handle the crush.

The sense that Block Island is stuck in the past can be a negative at times, too. The population appears strangely pale and monochromatic compared to that of New York City. If you are looking for hotels with high-speed Internet connections or hip contemporary furnishings, this isn’t prime territory.

The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the New York Post sometimes don’t make it onto Block Island until after 11 a.m., which can be a disadvantage if you want to read them but a blessing if you don’t. The lack of availability of the New York papers, along with the large number of people walking around in Red Sox hats and T-shirts, is a reminder that Block Island, while geographically closer to Long Island than to Boston, is psychologically part of New England.

So what is to be done here?

One popular activity is kayaking in the island’s salt ponds, including the Great Salt Pond that is at the island’s center and that serves as the mooring spot – “New Harbor” – for visiting yachts. For $35, we rented a two-person kayak for the afternoon from Oceans & Ponds, the Orvis dealer on Block Island (Ocean and Connecticut Aves., 401-466-5131).The young man who rented us the kayak gave us a waterproof bag for our belongings and, in keeping with the low-key tone of the island, told us that if we came back early and he wasn’t there, we should just haul the kayak halfway up the boat ramp and leave it there. He also gave us some brief advice on paddling in synch, along with the somewhat ominous warning that the possibility of knocking paddles had given the two-person kayaks the nickname “divorce boats.”

A pleasant paddle it was nonetheless, with the kayak providing a vigorous workout and a good look at some Block Island birds, sailboats, and private residences. If kayaking isn’t your speed, bike rentals are widely available and are another popular way of getting around the island.

Another way to get a good look at the island is on foot. A 3% tax on real-estate transactions on Block Island funds the Block Island Land Trust (401-466-3207), which includes a network of trails and conservation land. At Island Bound bookstore (Water St., 401-466-8878), for $9.99 we bought a copy of “On This Land: The Block Island Trail and Nature Guide,” published by the Nature Conservancy, which includes easy-to-follow trail maps and directions to trailheads. The Clay Head Trail, which starts at the end of a dirt road, runs two miles through lush greenery and along a bluff with spectacular views of the ocean and of Little Sachem pond.

And then there is the aforementioned beach. It is clean and relatively uncrowded, even during the peak summer months. There were plenty of families with young children, some of whom were enjoying exploring the tide pools rife with starfish.

In bad weather, the movie theater adds matinees, and the arcade next door, with three pinball machines and a small selection of video games, gets more crowded.

At its best, dining on Block Island is in tune with the casual seaside surroundings. Froozies (401-466-2230),a hole-in-the-wall on the back porch of the National Hotel (Water St., 401-466-2901), offers sweet-potato French fries, grilled cheese sandwiches, and frothy smoothies made from fresh fruit like watermelon and blueberries. Eli’s Restaurant (401-466-5230), a small outpost on Chapel Street, was our favorite place on the island for a sit-down dinner. Our meal featured locally caught bass and bread that came with a tasty tomato-olive-parmesan paste.

Taking the ferry (401-783-4613, www.blockislandferry.com) back to the mainland, the sense of nausea returned. Probably it was from the rocking of the sea, but it might as well have been from the time travel as we headed back to America in 2004.