East Coast US Road Trip with Kids

So much to see and do...don't miss Lexington/Concord to see where the Revolutionary War began. And while in Boston do the Freedom Trail. These are great history lessons for your kids. They are a great age for this!

Check out the New England Travel Forum on TripAdvisor, and also the travel forums for each state. There are some suggested itineraries that might be of interest.

Nine days is not a lot of time to cover everything you've mentioned. In the past we've spent six days just going to Acadia and through Vermont and New Hampshire to Ben and Jerry's. Last year we spent a week going to Acadia and then driving down the coast of Maine and back to Boston to fly home. But that's because we build in time during our days to get out and walk around and explore.

If you spend two days in NYC, then one very very long day driving to Ben and Jerry's (stopping at some points of interest along the way), then another very very long day driving to Bar Harbor, then spend two days there to actually see something, then a day to get to Salem and tour around, then the next day in Boston, and then fly home, that's your nine days. That's a lot of driving past a lot of things to see and do but you won't have time because this is a really long driving trip.

My family has done two separate NE trips (Portland>Boston>Newport and NYC>Burlington>Montreal), most of which entailed driving. You are squeezing in a lot in just 9 days. Heck, we spent 6 nights in NYC alone and found new things to do and see each day. Perhaps it might make more sense to substitute anything north of Salem or NYC (ie Vermont) for coastal destination? There's a lot to do and see in Newport, RI. Newport would also cut back on the driving a bit and gives you more time to do things.

Some thoughts on your destinations:
- NYC - So much to do. Besides Central Park, I would say the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side which is only a couple blocks away from lunch at the legendary Katz's Deli are two musts.
- Salem - Visited for a morning when driving Maine to Boston. Outside of the Salem Witch Museum which was very cool, the rest felt quite kitschy. But 1/2 day should suffice.
- Boston - Highly recommned a guided Freedom Trail tour which our early teen kids greatly enjoyed as they were kept engaged throughout the tour. A visit to the Minute Man Historical Park is possible as well.
- Vermont - We visited Ben and Jerry's which I'd also recommend. But if you're driving to VT from NYC, it opens the possibility of visited the Baseball HOF in Cooperstown.
- I didn't travel further north than Portland, but the coastal towns down southern Maine were pretty nice.

Feel free to message me about any restaurant or hotel recommendations.

I’m sure you’re aware that this is peak time for fall leaves to be turning and the area will be extremely crowded. With 9 days including time in NY and Boston, you will easily fill your days. I assume you’ll stay at least 2 nights in each of those big cities, which leaves you 5 nights to explore New England. I’ve researched a similar trip (10 nights round trip out of Boston), but we haven’t taken it yet. Here are some of my notes:

Boston to Williamstown = 3 hrs, 2 nts
Hwy 7 and 2 near Williamstown, MA

Williamstown to Stowe, VT = 3 hrs drive, 2 nts

Stowe to Conway, NH = 2.75, 1 nt
Kancamagus Hwy between Bath and Conway

Rte 100 in VT is good color. Stowe is very popular - options are Island Pond, Brighton, Norton

Conway to Bar Harbor = 4.25 hrs, 2 nts
(Acadia National Park)

Bar Harbor to Ogunquit = 3.5 hrs, 1 nt

Ogunquit to Boston 1.5 hrs, 2 nts

Various cute towns:
Woodstock, VT. Cascade Falls river area
Manchester, VT
Weston, VT (Vermont Country Store)
Grafton, VT
Bennington, VT
Laconia, VT (Kellerhaus: ice cream buffet)
Killington, VT

We realize this is a fast paced drive heavy trip but we’re west coasters and typically drive 2-3 hours for a day trip so we’re certainly no strangers to long car rides. We’re also not the type of travelers who like to kick back and relax on trips, we’re walk 30,000 steps per day kind of folk!

This is a nuts and bolts question. Where do you plan on renting a car?

Acadia National Park deserves two nights. It can be an over 3 Hour drive from Portland.

Make all your hotel/B&B reservations as soon as possible because October is an über expensive time of year whether you are in NYC or in a small village in Maine.

We’re also not the type of travelers who like to kick back and relax on trips, we’re walk 30,000 steps per day kind of folk!

This is fantastic! I am relieved to read this! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Renting at JFK, dropping off at Logan.

You will rent at JFK at the end of your NYC portion of the trip? You will have absolutely no need for a car in NYC.

JFK is far to go to pick up a car. At the end of your trip, LaGuardia Airport is closer for car rental. Plus you won’t have to drive Manhattan city streets in order to get to the highways to Westchester & New England.

we’re walk 30,000 steps per day kind of folk!

Travel4fun may have been suggesting that with all that driving, you may not have the opportunity for 30,000 steps.

If your intent is to pick up the car at JFK after your time in NYC, just keep in mind that traffic from JFK to points north can be extremely heavy at times. A car rental location near a commuter rail line station north of the city, or even Stamford or New Haven, could save time and hassle.

Since you don't have that much time, additional sights should be along the route to your target destinations. YouTube is actually a great resource for travel planning - start with a search for something like "New England road trip" - start watching videos and see what else YouTube suggests - and what appeals to your boys. Refine the search for places that interest you.

October is a great time to visit New England.

Oh I realize we won’t be walking much! What I meant is we’re travelers who like to be on the move and not stationary. Life is short and you never know if you’ll be able to make it to all the destinations on your list but, you might as well try to see some of what you can. If we’re lucky we can always go back and revisit things more throughly.
YouTube is a good idea. I hadn’t thought to search for road trips-I shall do that!

We had planned to stay in Brooklyn and keep the car at the hotel but, you’re making me reconsider. Good points being made all around!

I agree with other posters - there are some places where a car might be handy (Bronx Zoo) but for the time you’ll have in NYC there’s plenty to see where it would just be a hassle. If you’re staying in Brooklyn it’ll probably be easier to get to LaGuardia on the way out of town rent there than to get to Grand Central Station, take a train to Connecticut and rent at a location there. Traffic on the highway leading out of town from LaGuardia will be similar to the highways going in and out of San Francisco.

Good luck with the trip!

We had planned to stay in Brooklyn

If you know you're doing Central Park, you're probably better off staying in Midtown. The 42nd St corridor offers lots of subway connections.

Eh, I think staying in Brooklyn will be fine to visit the Manhattan sites as long as you're close to a subway stop. No need to pay midtown prices if you can find cheaper accommodations in the outer boroughs. I agree with other commentators who say to rent the car on the way out of NYC (Brooklyn might be a better bet for a non-airport car rental location) but I would add to drop off the car on your way into Boston unless you are 1000000% certain your accommodation offers parking. Believe it or not, it's easier to street park in NY. As a non-resident if you don't have off-street parking in Boston might as well use the tow lot as your parking spot lol.

I would highly recommend AMNH in NY for kids and adults alike though be aware it gets extremely busy. Under-the-radar museum picks in NY are the New-York Historical Society (right across from the Museum of Natural History, nice movie) and the Museum in the City of New York. The Frick recently reopened and I've heard great things. Also tbh I think the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens are better than the New York Botanic Gardens if you were planning on doing that although idk what the plant life is like in October. The tenement museum is fun. If the kids (or you) like trains the Transit museum is awesome, and all the kids in NY have shirts with the subway line of their first initial from the gift shop.

In Boston the Harvard Art Museums are free and very nice. Should be nice and quiet on a weekday. While you're in Harvard Square, there are also donut-focused walking tours that could be fun, but I've never personally taken one so I can't vouch. Boston doughnut culture is real. Museum of Fine Arts and Isabella Stewart Gardner are other nice art museums. If you like American history the JFK museum is nice and way bigger than I expected. Of course there's also the Freedom Trail and such. For about $17 a person you can get a guide dressed up olden timey to show you some of the best sites. Also, and this is out of the way, but if one of you is really into trains (and I mean really into trains, this is OUT OF THE WAY), a ride on the Mattapan Trolley is a nice chance to see a vintage trolley in real use.

There's plenty to do in both cities and I wouldn't limit yourselves to my suggestions but do what sounds interesting. Come back to the forum if you have questions about a particular attraction that gets recommended and I will give you the skinny (for example, lots of places will recommend the New England aquarium and though it is nice, it's not worth the admission fee if you are a tourist as chances are you have an equally nice aquarium in your home city).

NOW here's the thing. Salem? In October? I've done it and it is fun to walk around, see people dressed up, and visit the street vendors peddling spooky wares. But it will be CROWDED and you will have to wait on line just to get into some stores. Not to mention you'll really have to shell out for parking, and it might not even be close to the action. Salem is a really nice town and I'm not saying DON'T go to Salem - just be prepared and know what you're getting yourself into. If it doesn't sound like a good idea for your family but you want old buildings, cute shops, and ocean, Newburyport, Portsmouth, NH or Portland, Maine might be better options.

For food, Xi'an Famous Foods is a beloved NY chain. Also bagels of course - try a couple places and see which is your favorite. For a true NY experience, go out in the morning for half a dozen bagels, cream cheese and lox, and pick up tomato, red onion, and capers at a grocery store, pile it on high open-face style, and enjoy :)

I'm a fan of Thomas Dambo's trolls, and there are some at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Here's the info:
https://www.mainegardens.org/events-exhibits/giant-trolls/

As I suspected this was the best place to ask-you guys are amazing. Thanks so much for all the thoughtful and detailed responses, truly appreciated!

In Boston, a few years back, we took a tour of Fenway Park and truly enjoyed it. It gave me a special place in my heart for the Red Sox, with their long and storied history. We walked from the Gardiner Museum through the fens area (if I remember right) to the ballpark on our last day in the city. Good memories!

I think you are doing too much but it’s your trip. Once did a similar 9 day trip flying into Burlington and seeing Adirondacks, Newport and Boston and that was a full trip and skimming the surface. You are planning to do much more. Actually putting my foot down— you can’t cover this much ground in 9 days in a reasonable fashion, this is beyond travel style differences.

Locking yourself into nonstop flights is silly, if you are going all the way to Acadia (it’s far from Boston) fly home from Bangor. Consider starting at Hartford and skipping NYC. Or dropping Boston. Or dropping Maine.

Learn the ins and outs of all the tolls. If you have an EZ Pass compatible transponder bring it, else price the transponder fees in you rental price they vary a lot.

I would cut NYC out of "this" short itinerary altogether, fly to/from Boston, and spend the entirety of the trip enjoying Boston and New England. Spend more time in Maine, NH, and Vermont...leave NYC for another trip, like maybe a combo trip with DC (have you taken your kids there?)...no car needed for a combo NYC / DC trip, train between, subways, busses, and taxis in each city.

If you stick with your planned trip, you neither need or want the burden of a car inside NYC or inside Boston. Boston, for tourists, is surprisingly compact - it is a great walking city, very easy to connect the dots on foot. I would not rent a car at JFK to drive to Boston under any circumstances.

Given the close in location of Logan airport, if you cut out NYC from the trip, it is fairly convenient to start your trip flying into Boston, do Boston for a few days, then pick up a rental car at Logan for a New England tour, and return to Logan for your flight home. Getting to and from JFK for a car rental is a huge headache...driving a car in the NYC metro is pretty awful, too...

My 2 cents, I have "been there and done it", it is your trip...good luck.

Looks like you've received some great advice already. I'd personally wouldn't have a problem with your pacing. And while I agree a car inside NYC itself is unneeded, I also will say I have taken a car there many times.

It is common refrain on this forum to slow down, do less and give more time to cities and events. And that is good advice indeed. As folks travel more and have already been there and done that, they tend to recommend savoring instead of surveying.

The younger version of me however would always choose "more" rather than linger and soak-in. Just match your pacing with your style and the place you are in life and you'll do fine.

My favorite in NH is taking the huntington ravine trail to the top of mount Washington. It is a bit of a boulder scrabble. (I'm sure I'm too old to do it now... or am I?)

In any case, I'm sure you'll have a grand time!

Happy travels.

recommend savoring instead of surveying

There’s surveying, then there is covering so much ground there isn’t time for potty stops and the human waste has to be collected while driving and flung out the window.

An hour by hour itinerary will demonstrate the infeasibility of the desired itinerary, unless the goal is to see 1 thing in NYC, pull over for one lookout in Maine and no hiking, etc.

We plan to go to Central Park and some museums in NYC

To achieve this I would set aside 4 nights and 3 days in NYC as a minimum without any savoring time, just the rudimentary getting around minimum time required to get to and see, plus meals.

Ah New England. My favorite New England poet, Robert Frost, had this to say:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I agree with those who say there is no need for a car while in NYC. Stay near a subway and you can get most anywhere you would want to go.

I also agree that picking up the car from JFK to head north is probably not a good plan. I once flew into JFK and rented a car to head to upstate NY and it was a terrible mistake. The traffic was terrible and the trip took twice as long as indicated by Google Maps. I was exhausted by the time I reached my destination. Find another location to rent from. Or consider taking the train to Boston (easy and definitely more relaxing) and renting the car there for your New England travels.

I also agree that picking up the car from JFK to head north is probably not a good plan. I once flew into JFK and rented a car to head to upstate NY and it was a terrible mistake. The traffic was terrible and the trip took twice as long as indicated by Google Maps.

I had a similar experience on a business trip, arriving at and renting a car at LaGuardia to drive up to Poughkeepsie, and on paper it would seem an easier trip than starting from JFK, but it was an awful experience. And this was 25 years ago...never did anything like that again.

Highly recommend not driving from NYC to Boston done that several times and the traffic thru CT can be terrible. Someone recommended train from NYC and that to me is good idea and you also get to see Grand Central Station which to me is a gem in NYC. Great travels.