Bar Harbor Maine across route 2 to NH. Stop at the Town and Country resort in Gorham, NH for a night. See Mt. Washington and then cut south to 302 or go back to 2 and continue across to VT. Take a side trip to Lyndonville, Me just off of 91 in VT. Stop at the Miss Lyndonville diner and have some pie.
Continue on 2 to 89 and pickup route 100 south. Follow 100 south to Wilmington and stop there for at least one night. Eat at Dot’s for breakfast. It’s an old time New England diner in a quaint mountain town with lots of touristy things to do.
From Wilmington, turn east and follow route 9 to New Hampshire. In Keene, NH, pickup route 101 East through the Monadnock region and over Temple mountain toward Manchester.
If you stay on 101 it goes all the way to Portsmouth, NH. Without question, the Olde Ferry Landing is the place to stop for the giant scallops or lobster and dine on the river by the tugboats.
Personally, I recommend Portland, Maine Old Port for a stop if you like rustic old cities. For oldsters, DiMillos on the Water restaurant (floating) is excellent. Street and Company have the best upscale Italian seafood in the northeast. Rosies Restaurant and Pub is a must visit for burgers, beer and locals. Gritty McDuffs brews their own beer.
If you are a biker, stop at Bentley’s on Route 1 in Arundel. If not, continue to Portland.
Depending upon the dates, the best leaves will be on route 2 in northern New Hampshire, route 100 in Vermont and in the Monadnock region, specifically around Dublin and Peterborough, NH. Later in the month, the Berkshires in Mass are good.
Downtown Portsmouth, NH and the Old Port area of Portland, Maine are the best small cities to visit. If you head farther west, Burlington, Vermont is interesting.
I lived in various areas of New Hampshire for 55 years and they all have their good points. I’m in far SW Florida now because I hate shoveling snow and I like to ride my convertible and motorcycles year round.
Have fun.
when we did our honey moon trip so many yrs ago, we went up the coast and then to Bar Harbor...from there we went up to northern Maine near Greeley and then up to Quebec....
from Quebec, down into New Hampshire and then thru to Vermont and visited Stowe and ate at the restaurant run at that time by the family in the Sound of Music....
I live in the west and I enjoy the west, but upstate NY and New England are wonderful slow paced areas with lots to see....
Think that you have a ton of good options. Avoiding NYC and heading up the NYS Thruway 87 towards Albany (avoid Albany) at Troy I’d cut over Rte 2 or Rte 7 towards Vermont. Brattleboro Vt or Keene NH would be good place to stop off. Make time to hit Walpole NH (Watkins Inn, town is frozen in the early 1800’s . Then work your way up to Portland Maine. I’d look to stay up in Bath. Spectacular.
White mountains Kancamagus highway. Don’t do it on a Saturday or Sunday during peak season.
I grew up just outside of Plymouth, Mass and had grandparents living in the Berkshires of Mass. I now live in Maine.
What I would do is as follows:
Stay away from New York City. There is never a way to know if there will be nasty traffic or not. Plus a little to the West and the sites in Pennsylvania and New York are a lot better.
I would try to stay in Pennsylvania, New York hotels will likely be more expensive.
From New York try to head towards Pittsfield, Mass. It is not a great destination, but will lead you to Route 7 up into Vermont. It is a great drive and one used for leaf peepers. In Vermont you will arrive in Bennington which is a fun “artsy” town to look around.
After Bennington, set your Navigation to Bethel, Maine. You should be taken through some great small and rural towns through Vermont and New Hampshire. Plenty of small towns to visit and a really pretty drive. You will probably drive right through White Mountain national forest.
Bethel Maine is not far over the border into Maine and is known for Sugarloaf Ski Resort and sits in the middle of a great place to look at fall foliage.
Much depends on the time of year, but this route should provide a really easygoing and pleasant bit of sightseeing.
If you get near Adams, Mass I can really strongly suggest a lunch at Angelina’s subs. Remember to ask for the Dust! In Bethel try something Laos from Le Mu.
My wife and I have travelled all over Southern New England. We treated my Mom & Dad to their 50th wedding anniversary at the Christmas Farm Inn in Jackson, NH (in the White Mountains) and loved it. I asked my wife to marry me in Center Lovell, Maine. We took our kids to the Tyler Place in Northern Vermont a few times and they loved it. We really enjoyed our Revolutionary War and Colonial historical visits to Sturbridge Village, the Old North Church, Lexington and Concord, Paul Revere’s House and many other historic locations. My wife and I especially enjoyed Acadia National Park in Maine (get the popovers at Jordan Pond House). The Cabot Creamery around Waterbury Center, VT was great — fantastic cheese!
If you like industrial history, you will like the American Precision Museum in Windsor, VT on the Connecticut, River. You will really understand how and why New England was the major manufacturing center of the young USA.
Be sure to get some cozy inn rooms with a fireplace for the chilly nights, too!
As another poster wrote, start up north and leisurely move south following the foliage. Be as flexible as you can because foliage dates vary widely, but you generally can’t go wrong with the first week of October.
The fire devastation was severe. Later, new trees were planted and after some years the forest became lush again. That particular area has quite a bit of pink granite which is only found in a very few sites on Earth.
The natural trees are Evergreens, but the new trees which were cultivated were deciduous. From high up, the different shades of green can easily be discerned. This is the case during very late Spring and early Summer. There are shades of very dark green and much lighter greens. This not at once apparent if there were no Guide to explain just what the view is really showing.
As Summer progresses, the distinctions are said to become more evident. By the time of Fall, the changing leaves are described as being truly magnificent. In Bar Harbor at peak Autumn, Cruise Ships come in, fully loaded. The end of the Season is said to be unique and once in a lifetime viewing worthy.
The thing is, that Arborists have determined that the Deciduous trees cannot thrive in the soil there because of the preponderance of Granite. The roots of the trees simply cannot grab hold there. In the next century those trees shall all be gone, unable to sustain themselves via reproduction. The forest of the region shall once again be completely dominated by the Evergreens.
I have not been there myself in the Fall, but I can say that Bar Harbor is one of my favorite ‘touristy places’ ever. I tend to dislike Tourist areas very much.
The story of the area is fascinating. Accadia National Park is distinct in a number of ways. Virtually all of the land was once privately owned. It was not confiscated by the Federal Government ( a violation of the Constitution, BTW.) Wealthy donors simply gave the land to the Government in order to insure that it would be protected and maintained into perpetuity.
The National Parks Act coincides with the birth of Accadia, nee’ Lafayette National Park. The story of the name change is of interest. Bar Harbor Town is literally on the edge, or perhaps even a part of the Park.
Artists were attracted to that park long ago, and some of the works are positively amazing. Do a search on ‘Rockefeller's Teeth’ for a curious insight into the construction of the ‘Cadillac Road.’
Everything about Bar Harbor is to me amazing.
Stay away from Irish Bars advertising Lobster Rolls. I can tell you where to go. If you like climbing, bring your rock climbing gear. You will not regret visiting that place.
About fifteen years ago my wife and I took our first trip to Maine. We looked up all the lighthouses along the coast of Maine and started at one of the southernmost and worked our way north to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We went at the end of the season and everything (summer stuff and seasonal restaurants) was closing or soon would be. It had been wet and colder the week before but the week we were there it had warmed back up.
We planned out own route and researched the lighthouses etc that we stopped to see. Went to the LL Bean flagship store and other shops and boy did we have fall color on the drive. We went a mountain top overlook park above Camden and really enjoyed our exploration.
Don’t know if we could duplicate it again — picking the right week is tricky. But it is a beautiful and photogenic coastline. We found the people glad to see late season patrons.
I guess you ought to make reservations now. But I feel like you are messing with our heads, making us think about October when it’s actually April out there.
Make. Sure. You. Have. Reservations.
I-81 and I-84 are the way to bypass the urban concentrations of the BosWash megapolis. I-81 and I-84 meet in Scranton, but don’t let that put you off.
If you went North to South, you would get good foliage longer.
The foliage turns from north to south, and from inland to the coast. At any particular point the transition from moderate to peak to post-peak is only about two weeks, so a week can make a difference.
The State of New Hampshire has a foliage tracker which will give you a pretty good idea, at least for New Hampshire, what areas are going to have the most color when. You can check out last year’s progression by moving the slider. Pretty much every year is going to be similar in timing.
https://www.visitnh.gov/seasonal-trips/fall/foliage-tracker
Because the progression is basically north and west to south and east, I would NOT go up the coast first. Better to head up Western New England into the interior and then head east to Maine and then down the coast, you’ll be following the color.
The White Mountains of New Hampshire will be at their peak right around Columbus Day, and it should be good a week either side of that. Central Vermont is probably about the same. Also the Connecticut River valley in Massachusetts is beautiful, but I don’t know when it hits peak, not that it has to be at the peak everywhere. You could easily find out.
Coming up from New York I would come up through Connecticut taking Rt. 84 to Hartford, then head up 91 north, into Massachusetts, and continue up the Connecticut River valley. Once you leave Massachusetts the Connecticut River is the border between Vermont and NH, running up the Vermont side. You could take 91, visiting Vt. towns along the way, and can easily cross over into NH pretty much anywhere, although there are only a few major east-west roads. I would consider picking up US Route 302 in Vt. and then heading east which will take you over to Franconia. Franconia Notch is one of the highlights of the White Mountains. From there you can take Rte. 93 south through the notch until Lincoln, then take the Kancamagus highway, Rte. 112, east to Conway. The Kancamagus is a scenic highway through 4000 foot mountains. Alternatively you can stay on 302 and come down through Crawford Notch, also ending up in Conway. At this point you’re just a few miles west of Maine. You can continue on Rte 302 into Maine, generally southeast to Portland, and then follow smaller coast roads down through New Hamphsire’s 13-mile coastline into the North Shore of Massachusetts. Gloucester and Salem have plenty of history. There’s also a little-known place called Hammond Castle in Magnolia that’s worth a visit. It has a view of the Reef of Norman’s Woe, from the Longfellow poem the “Wreck of the Hesperus.”
From the North Shore of Mass you can take Rte. 128/I-95, bypassing Boston, to the Massachusetts turnpike west to Sturbridge, where there’s a recreated 18th century NE village, akin to Williamsburg, which I went to twice as a kid and enjoyed it. At Sturbridge you can take 84 back through Connecticut to the NYC area and continue south.
Book early, and good luck.
I would start by going west first out towards Frederick MD then hit Sharpsburg and back towards Gettysburg.
Everyone else gave you great ideas about what to hit up north from there.
I suggest you stop in Newburyport, Ma. Pretty little town with lots to do.
Kangamangis (sp) highway in Northern NH is a must if you want the most beautiful scenery in the world. Maybe a trip up Mount Washington to the weather observatory is always fun. There’s other tourist venues along the way to Maine.
Check out the Woodstock Inn and Brewery in Woodstock, NH up in the White Mountains.
A Great place to stay and right next to the entrance of The Kancamagus Highway.
https://www.woodstockinnbrewery.com/
One suggestion: Fly from DC to MHT or PWM and rent a car there. Otherwise, you’re looking at a pretty long drive with LOTS of traffic and tolls on the way.
How long do you have to spend? The Adirondacks in upstate NY are beautiful, as is VT and NH. Coastal ME is great, tons of places to shop, eat and stay. But you’re looking at a long drive.