New England's Boutique Hotels and Inns

Fifteen nights from Boston to Newport, self-drive, through New England by way of Maine, Vermont and Connecticut, staying in boutique hotels and inns.

The accommodation is the organising idea rather than the route: five properties, each of them small and particular, with the driving between them deliberately short.

Four nights at XV Beacon open it in Boston, for the Freedom Trail, Beacon Hill, Harvard across the river and the North End. Kennebunkport follows for three at the White Barn Inn, with Salem and its 1692 witch trials, Gloucester and Portsmouth as optional detours on the way. Woodstock in Vermont comes next for three, a village of a green, white churches and a covered bridge, with the Green Mountains behind it. Washington in Connecticut follows for two at the Mayflower Inn on fifty-eight acres, reached by Rutland, the Southern Vermont Arts Center and the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge. Newport closes the route, where the Gilded Age families built summer houses the size of palaces along the cliffs.

The accommodation at the named hotels and inns is included; the rental car is priced separately so the vehicle can be chosen to suit, and admissions to Mystic Seaport and the Norman Rockwell Museum are extra. Late September and the first half of October are the obvious window, since the hardwood colour in New England is the reason most visitors come, and the inns book out a year ahead for it. Sixteen days is generous for the distance covered, which is the point: four nights in Boston and three-night stays in Maine and Vermont leave time to sit still, and the longest drive on the itinerary is comfortably under four hours.