New England Explorer Self Drive

Seven nights in a loop from Boston, self-guided, through four New England states, with the flights included.

Seven nights and six stops is a fast itinerary, and the pay-off is the range: coast, mountains, villages and Cape Cod inside a week, with most of the legs comfortably under three hours.

Boston opens it for two nights, with the Freedom Trail, Beacon Hill and Faneuil Hall. The route then runs north by Salem, where the witch trials of 1692 are documented at the museum, Gloucester and Rockport, Portsmouth, Kennebunkport, which has served as a summer home to presidents, and Portland, with a night on the Maine coast. The White Mountains follow for a night, the highest ground in New England, with covered bridges and old hill villages, then Stowe in Vermont by way of Craftsbury and Greensboro. The Green Mountains and the Connecticut River Valley come next, with Old Sturbridge Village and its early nineteenth-century living history, then Newport, where the Astors and Vanderbilts summered, and Cape Cod, with the dunes, the cliffs and the Mayflower II replica at Plymouth.

Return flights to Boston, a checked bag each way, seven days of fully inclusive car hire and seven nights across the six stops, some with breakfast, are included; fuel, most meals and the museum admissions are not. The price shown is per person sharing. Late September and early October are the window for the colour, and the inns fill up well ahead for it. Eight days at this pace means a move almost every morning, so this is the itinerary for travellers who would rather see six places briefly than two at length, and the driving is easy throughout.