Trip to New England – highs and lows

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• Location: USA
• Holiday Types: City break, Family holidays, Getting there

• by: JosieDriver
• on: Wed 23 May 2012

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We flew in to Boston, had three nights there and then picked up a hire car to tour round New England.  We went south first then west, north and back to the east coast.  We stayed in a mixture of hotels, inns and B&Bs.  We asked out travel agent to arrange the trip and give us some nights in B&Bs so that we would meet Americans in their own setting, not just hotel staff.  This worked fine.

The hotels by and large could have been anywhere in the world - we found overall that t hey are comfortable but characterless and t he larger inns were disappointing, more like motels. Breakfasts were served in each of them but it varied from mediocre to ‘I really wished we had not bothered’. The smaller inns and B&Bs were excellent though.  Everyone served breakfast which varied from mediocre to excellent and inventive.  All provided tea and coffee making facilities either in the room or in a communal area and all had a residents lounge. All were able to give local knowledge of where to go and what to see and all the owners we met were charming people who could not do enough to make our stay pleasant.

There is a lot to see in New England and I think this is probably the best time of year to come if you don’t want crowds and lots of time on a beach.   The fall colours are worth the trip.  The national or state parks in the Berkshires, the White Mountains and the Green Mountains are wonderful – particularly if you like walking. Boston too was interesting to visit and most of the things you would want to see are in walking distance.
Would we do it again?  Yes, but not in the same way.  We found moving on every day or two quite tiring.  Also it had failed to register that it meant eating out three times a day! Next time I would want to do fewer stops and perhaps have a week in one place self-catering just to have a break from eating out.  We could have seen almost the same by having a week in Cape Cod, a week in Vermont or New Hampshire and a week for Bar Harbor and Boston.

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