Planning trip to Northeast

[cardtarget]

Hey all, we did North Carolina to yellowstone last summer and had an amazing time. We have three kids (10,8,5). Looking to do a Northeast trip this summer.

Obvious places to go:

Niagara Falls
Acadia National Park
Ben and Jerry's Factory

Anywhere else up that way between New York and Maine that we NEED to do or should plan to be a part of the trip? For that matter, anybody stayed anywhere in New England that they loved? I've heard good things about Cape Cod for RV camping.

Thanks in advance!

[cardtarget]

Just wanted to close this topic down with a trip review based on all of your recommendations!

Day 1: Shenandoah National Park. Stayed at Big Meadow campground and had a great time. The bear fence rock scramble was the highlight. Amazing hiking.

Day 2: Luray Caverns. Stayed at the falling waters RV park off I-81. Meh.

Day 3 (July 3rd): Went to the Gettysburg reinactment and spent the day between the battlefields and the visitors center. Fun! Drove to Knoebels amusement park and got there at 8 PM. Walked around a bit before the park closed at 9.

Day 4 (July 4th): Spent the day at Knoebels. Lots of fun, very cheap. I think we spent less than $100 there and had a great day with lots of fun. Stayed there that night too.

Day 5: Drove to Hammonasett Beach State Park in CT. Great sunset, easy walk on the beach, nice campground.

Day 6-7: Drove to Atlantic Oaks RV park on Cape Cod. Excellent location, easy in and out, bike trails for the kids, beaches close by. Stayed there 2 nights.

Day 8: Did a whale watch in Provincetown. Lots of waves that day and half my family got sick, but we got to see a bunch of whales! Drove down to Hyannis and watched a cape cod baseball game that night. Easy parking for RV's there at the high school. We got there about 90 minutes before the game and parked really close, made dinner, enjoyed the evening at the ballpark. After the game we drove all the way around Boston and spent the night in a Wal-mart parking lot around midnight just after crossing into New Hampshire.

Day 9: Drove up to Old Orchard Beach. Unfortunately it rained for 36 hours as soon as we crossed the Maine border. But luckily the lobster was still delicious. Stayed at Paradise Park RV resort in OOB. It was very nice and would certainly stay there again when the weather was better.

Day 10: Drove up to the Schoodic Penninsula and stayed at the new Schoodic campground. Wonderful new campground, big sites, easy bus pickup for travel around. Schoodic point is very cool.

Day 11-12: Drove to Acadia and spent two nights at the Blackwoods campground. We did quite a bit in 3 days in Acadia. Took the kids on the "Dive In Theater" with Diver Ed. Highly recommended! Drove up Cadillac Mountain in the RV even though signs said we weren't supposed to (you can do it, it's not that bad).

Day 13: Drove to White Mountains in NH, did the Cog Railroad up to the top of Mount Washington. Stayed at Sugarloaf 1 campground which was nice and quiet. Would stay there again, especially if I had more time for hiking. I could hear a river close and I wanted to explore but the time just didn't allow.

Day 14: Drove to Burlington and did the Ben and Jerry's factory along the way. The tour is ok, nothing special. But the ice cream was great! Spent the night at an uncle's house.

Day 15: Drove to Saratoga and walked around the National Military Park. Kids got another junior ranger badge and we got out of the RV for a bit. Drove the rest of the way to our family reunion in Binghampton, NY.

Day 16: Drove home.

Overall a fun trip.

Best Lobster was actually not in Maine but at Arnold's on Cape Cod. I had two excellent lobster rolls in Maine too (and two mediocre ones). But Arnold's was the best.

[vermilye]

I'll second Letchworth State Park in NY, and a ferry ride to Nantucket. Different from the Vineyard, with many beach choices. Some photos from a couple of my trips to Nantucket.

If you are going through northeast PA, and like to hike, check out Ricketts Glen State Park. 22 waterfalls along a 5 - 7 mile hike (you can do sections of it if you don't want to do the whole thing). Some photos.

[dakasa47]

Hello, Having lived in Massachusetts all my life (63 and 7/8ths years) I have been all over the NE states staying in hotels, inns and since 2007 our trailer. There really are so many beautiful and interesting places to see and visit. My all time favorite though is the coast of Maine. It is truly a beautiful place. All the way from Ogunquit to Eastport. We have stayed at so many places over the years it would be impossible to list them all but our favorite is Wild Duck RV resort in Scarborough. It is an adults only place though. The owner Chris is always welcomes us back and makes sure that we have a great stay.We have stayed at Camden State Park, Sunset Point in Harrington ME. The owner will cook and deliver fresh from the ocean steamed lobster to your campsite. What a treat! Seaview Campground in Eastport, Cherwonki Campground in Wiscacasset, Hadleys Point in Bar Harbor, Mt Desert Narrows II outside of Bar Harbor, Wild Apple, Campground Boothbay, and I may be forgetting a couple. We have been to the west 4 times in our camper, down the eastern seaboard 5 times and all over New England......to me the coast of Maine rivals any of these places for beauty. If you get a chance take the fast ferry to Nantucket, another place we went to many times staying in an inn, this was before our Rv days

[JoeH]

If you are going from Niagara falls to Acadia, look at stopping in the Thousand islands area. Lots of interesting sites and things to do. If you are there at the end of July, Clayton has a great antique boat show. Going this way also gets you off the interstates for going to Maine.

[pitch]

If you are going to Binghamton check out staying at the Hickories in Owego. Small town run park,clean and well run. No reservations but family can "claim" a spot for you morning of arrival. Right off 86 ,434 or any of the 17's 20 or 30 minutes west depending on where in Binghamton you need to be.
To be in the southern tier and not go to Corning Museum of Glass would be a sin. An hour west of Binghamton right on I-86/17.

[mdcamping]

Tvov wrote:

michigansandzilla wrote:

Tvov wrote:
In Connecticut you have Mystic Seaport and Gillete Castle (if you have time for it - the castle is a one day visit, but may be out of your way). Mystic Aquarium is okay, I am not too impressed with it, but I haven't been there in years. Connecticut is neat for adults to explore, but not a whole lot to keep a young kid's interest.

How about Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut? I don't plan on going anytime soon, but it is on my "to-do" list for whenever we get into the area.

Actually, I've never been there! I'm sure someone else will chime in.

Just my 2 cents, If you happen to be in the area, it's okay. building with lots of dino tracks but for the most part that was it. We took our kids there about 12 yrs ago and they were bored. If your coming from out of state I would choose Mystic seaport.

Mike

[Tvov]

michigansandzilla wrote:

Tvov wrote:
In Connecticut you have Mystic Seaport and Gillete Castle (if you have time for it - the castle is a one day visit, but may be out of your way). Mystic Aquarium is okay, I am not too impressed with it, but I haven't been there in years. Connecticut is neat for adults to explore, but not a whole lot to keep a young kid's interest.

How about Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut? I don't plan on going anytime soon, but it is on my "to-do" list for whenever we get into the area.

Actually, I've never been there! I'm sure someone else will chime in.

[michigansandzil]

Tvov wrote:
In Connecticut you have Mystic Seaport and Gillete Castle (if you have time for it - the castle is a one day visit, but may be out of your way). Mystic Aquarium is okay, I am not too impressed with it, but I haven't been there in years. Connecticut is neat for adults to explore, but not a whole lot to keep a young kid's interest.

How about Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut? I don't plan on going anytime soon, but it is on my "to-do" list for whenever we get into the area.

[mdcamping]

As mentioned on previous posts,

In southern ME there's OOB. A magnet for rving families, tons of stuff to do with the kids.

Our your way up might want to do a few days at Knoebels, very clean park for families. No fee required to go into park! pick & pay for any ride you want to go on or they also have bulk ticket deals for families.

Mike

[USMC46]

We did a similar trip last year. I'm glad we did it but I won't do the backroads of New England again in a large coach. A lot of narrow poorly maintained roads beat my coach up bad. However, we did go on the Nova Scotia and that made it all worth the trip. What a beautiful area, very similar to Scotland where we have spent some time. I enjoyed New England but tight parks, not a lot of places to pull over in the small villages and very bad roads. I hate turnpikes but I loved them on the way back from New England.

[Tvov]

I would push doing the "Pilgrim thing" if you are going to be in the area of Boston / Cape Cod. The boat Mayflower II, Plimouth Plantation, etc. Note about Plymouth Rock: It, literally, is just a rock (lol!). Many people just look at it and walk away. ASK one of the Park Rangers there about it - a very nice Ranger there gave us a fascinating 10+ minute talk about the history of the Rock... even our young kids were impressed.

If you are in Boston, Boston Aquarium is very cool. They have a huge center tank that you walk around on a ramp. Part of one day is enough time to plan for it.

We have not done it, but have heard lots of good things about the "Duck Boat" tours.

Cape Cod - we camped at Atlantic Oaks, a very nice campground in the middle of the Cape and directly on the "Rail Trail". If you can, bring your bicycles! The Rail Trail is an old railroad bed paved over for use (mostly) by bicycles. Long, straight and flat runs with few curves or very gentle hills.

In Maine, Acadia is really awesome... for adults and older kids. We've been there a few times and are planning on going back. It is all about hiking and bicycling. You certainly can drive to most of the major spots there, but I am just not sure how much "fun" a younger kid would have there.

Upstate New York - My son and I greatly enjoyed Fort Ticonderoga at the northern end of Lake George in New York - we are history buffs. We stayed at Lake George Escape Evergreen Campground, which was big and had tons to do in the campground itself. It has been years since I've been to that campground, but I've read it is still good. It is at the northern end of the lake, and son and I found the scenic drive up the lake on rte 9A (I think? NOT the highway!) to be surprising fun!

Niagara Falls was neat to visit, but we didn't find it "awe inspiring". There is a LOT to do in the area for kids though, as it is a huge tourist area, especially on the Canadian side. After saying the falls are not awe inspiring, I do however recommend you definitely do the Maid of the Mist boat. We enjoyed dinner at the Skylon Restaurant overlooking the falls. If you take your camper across the border into Canada (we found the KOA on Lundy's Lane to be great), look up info on crossing the border - lots of tips and things to do to make it easy and smooth.

Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania was impressive, and worked out well with kids because you can do the "self drive tour" using CDs in your own vehicle. We made it more interesting for the kids by finding the monuments to men from our state and other states that we had visited.

In Connecticut you have Mystic Seaport and Gillete Castle (if you have time for it - the castle is a one day visit, but may be out of your way). Mystic Aquarium is okay, I am not too impressed with it, but I haven't been there in years. Connecticut is neat for adults to explore, but not a whole lot to keep a young kid's interest.

Have fun!

[Padlin]

Not that I've been there, but a very popular campground around Boston if you have kids is Normandy Farms in Foxboro, expensive and hard to get into if you wait to long for reservations. Just took a look and there is a metro station 10 minutes away so access to the city would be easy.

On Cape Cod many like Atlantic Oaks and Shady Knoll if you want hookups. We use Nickerson State Park.

There is a new campground at Acadia that just opened last fall, Schoodic Woods, don't know if they have hookups as it's a NP campground. Scoodic point is on the next peninsula north from Acadia, a very nice place to drive around, like a mini Acadia. At least it was 10 years ago.

[4runnerguy]

If you want to do the Freedom Trail walk, be aware that Boston isn't a fun place to drive with an RV. You might consider Scusset Beach State Reservation south of Plymouth. Beach within walking distance and there are several options to take the train into Boston. We stayed at Shawme Crowell State Forest as Scusset Beach was undergoing renovation this spring. Scusset is also relatively convenient to the ferry terminal if you decide to do the trip to Martha's Vineyard.

Be aware that the USS Constitution is currently in dry dock and you are only allowed to visit a small portion of the forward deck and nothing down below deck.

[Veebyes]

Working on next years trip to Downeast right now. Going a bit further, Newfoundland, & a bit longer, over 100 days.

Biggest problem so far is finding open CGs. We depart Eastern Shore Chesapeake Bay mid April. It is going to be a slow meander northward for the first few weeks catching places as they open for the season.