NE States Road Trip Part 1......Planning, Preparation and Travel Day

My hubby and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary on October 10th and last year we decided we wanted to take a trip just the two of us. On both of our wish lists.....the New England States in the fall to see the colors. So we began planning. This is the first of several posts (I haven't decided how I will organize these posts...probably by day so I can include several photos, ideas, links, etc,). 

Post one...the planning, the prep and travel day.

We decided on a 10 day trip. After the trip we decided that 2 weeks (more if you can wing it) would've been ideal. There is just so much to see and do. But 10 days was what we had to work with. I never count the first day of travel because you literally are flying all day. So we had about 8 1/2 days to see what we wanted to see. I'm going to say this...it was NOT a cheap vacation. I suppose we could've found ways to make it cheaper, but we had been saving and knew what we were spending. 

Some friends of ours had done the same trip in 2021 and they gladly met with us over breakfast in the spring to share their tips, their fave spots, etc. Also loaning us a book, Frommer's New England. The book was helpful but I did a lot of searching online. The other #1 tool we invested in was the app Roadtrippers. I downloaded the app but did most of the planning on the computer. It's just easier for me that way. Here is a link to our trip. This allowed us to map out our trip, adding "waypoints" along the way. There were a few places we stopped that I just couldn't find on the app so I couldn't add them. I think for any trip, this is a must have app. It allowed you to add notes, you could your miles between destinations, and I just realized you can add text, which I may do later. 

I do wish I would've looked at the book a bit more. 

The other website they recommended was New England foliage map. There are several, but I think this is the one we used. It allowed you to put in your dates and see where the states were in the foliage season...early, mid, peak or late. This allowed us to decide which direction to drive. It's honestly a crap shoot because the weather can change on a dime, BUT, we found it found it to be a fairly accurate gauge. 

We decided to fly into Boston (though if we did it again, we'd fly into an airport in Maine). We flew a direct flight on Alaska from Portland, Or. I don't care for flying, but sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do because you love to travel.

Hubby has always wanted a Toyota Tacoma so that's what he rented...we would've either rented an SUV or a truck..it just allowed for a more comfortable ride on some back roads and since we were on the road a lot, easier to haul our luggage etc from place to place.

Of the 10 days we were gone, all but 5 were single night stays. With that said, we packed one carry on bag, one medium size checked bag, and then we each had a back pack. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't over or under pack. We did laundry once towards the end of our trip. I always bring a tall kitchen garbage bag with me to put dirty laundry in to either wash while gone or to bring home and put right in the laundry room as soon as we unpack. 

Before we talk about packing, let's talk about the planning more. My hubby gets 98% of the credit. He did pretty much all of it. We did learn that there's a fine line between staying in a "cheap" hotel (because we're only there one night and it's just to sleep) and a reasonably priced one that is at least "safe feeling". We only had one hotel that we said "nope, not staying here", that did leave us scrambling to try and find something last minute that wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg but there was no way we were staying at this one. We decided to stay 2 nights in one location in New Hampshire, and 3 nights at one location in Vermont. We knew it was peak season in these areas so it was a bit tough to find what we wanted, but we managed. I recommend reserving everything a few months in advance. 

I packed a few basic things that could be worn with other items I packed and I have no problem wearing the same thing more than once, though I did get one pair of pants muddy. I packed 1 pair of simple boots, a pair of tennis shoes to hike in or exercise in and then a "cuter" pair of tennis shoes (comfort was key)...I packed a longer jacket/coat that wasn't heavy but keeps me plenty warm and fits great in a suitcase. Most of my pants were legging/athletic type and one pair of jeans. A couple longer tops to go with those and one or two t-shirts. There wasn't anything I didn't wear at least once. Win for me. 

In order to plan where we'd stay, we looked at things to do in each state and found towns that were on the way or central to more than one "sight" we wanted to see. We then plugged in the places we would stay into Roadtrippers. From there we started googling things such as "best places to visit, must see places, etc." We also used our friends roadtripper map as a rough guide, adding a few things they did to our list. Once we got home, I added a few more things. We didn't do everything on the list and that wasn't necessarily the plan, it was to act as a guide or reference. I did a lot of googling. This blog post had some great info. Also, on one of our Tuesday 4 linky parties, the topic had to do with the NE states and I got some great ideas from a few gals there. 

The other thing I did was purchased a sheet of postcard stamps. Why? Not to send to others, but to send to myself. I saw an idea on Facebook (and of course I can't find it now) and Pinterest that suggested purchasing postcards each day of your trip, or from each location, then writing on it what you did that day and mailing it home. When you get back you'll have a journal of everything you did while you were gone. I LOVED this idea. I just read another post that suggested taking pieces of a map that showed those areas as well, so I'll probably do that too. I only messed up a few times...getting my days wrong and that was only because I forgot to buy postcards on one or two days. Note to self...when you see a postcard, buy it. 

My father in law took us to the airport. The Portland, Or airport is so nice to navigate. It's only 30 minutes from our house, which is another perk. The flight was 5ish hours long, fairly smooth, but still, uggh I don't like flying. I mostly read because I realized I packed an empty earbud case. We landed in Boston at about 6:15, grabbed our luggage and took the shuttle to the rental car area. It took a few times to get a truck...the first two the guy showed us were still dirty, inside and out and one smelled. Finally 3rd times a charm and we got a clean truck. We had about an hours drive north to our hotel in Hampton, New Hampshire. Side note, the first several nights, our arrivals at our hotels were after dark, which was kind of weird to not really know what the area really looked like where you were going to be staying. We arrived to our hotel, checked in..it was an older hotel/motel...outside access. Clean, but strong scent of who knows what they used to clean it. Haha. It was late, not much was open close by so we drove to a local grocery chain store, Hannaford. We bought some hummus, crackers, fruit, fried chicken, and called it good. We ate, chilled out and then hit the hay, though it sounded like they were remodeling the room next to us and moving furniture...cue the white noise, which helped a little but not much. It's okay...it's only one night right? 

Tune in for the next installment of Day 2 (since I counted travel day as 1)  

With Joy Unquenchable,

Kirstin