New England Road Trip Itinerary

I’ve road-tripped around New England many times over the years. The Northeastern US is just a hop, skip, and jump from my home base in Nova Scotia, Canada. For our honeymoon, my partner Neil and I packed up our new camper van, and our dog Freyja, and took a week and a half to travel around Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and upstate New York.

This area has amazing coastlines, mountains, and cities to explore. In this post I’ll share our favorite stops along the way.

Maine

We stayed in Maine for 3 nights at the beginning of our trip and 1 night on the way home. We stayed with family in the area. One of the most iconic places to visit in Maine is the LL Bean store in Freeport. They have several stores focused on clothing, home goods, and sporting goods. They also have an outlet store with prices 20-60% off the sticker price.

After Freeport, Portland is a short drive away and well worth a visit. Portland is a small city with a population just under 70,000. It is easy to drive into and we didn’t find there to be a lot of traffic. We arrived on a week day and parked at Back Cove Park where we could park for free. It was about a 20 minute walk to Congress Street, one of the main commercial streets in the city. Portland is so small it worked well to park on the outskirts and walk around for the day.

Our first stop in Portland was Taco Escobarr. We had some delicious tacos and guacamole on the patio and everyone loved our dog Freyja. After that we strolled through the area, and grabbed a coffee and a donut at HiFi Donuts. Next we visited Fish and Bone, a pet store selling bones and locally hunted antlers by weight. We bought Freyja a moose antler and carried on our way.

New Hampshire

We didn’t spend much time in New Hampshire. We mainly drove through it to get to Vermont. It gets an honorable mention because we stopped for lunch and fell in love with the city of Portsmouth. Portsmouth is a town of 22,000 people on the Piscataqua River. It was colonized in the 1600s (earlier than some parts of Turtle Island, aka North America) so the built environment includes many historic brick buildings and cobblestone streets. It has a historic feel throughout the downtown.

We had a wonderful lunch at Domo Sushi & Bar. The sushi was high quality and the service was great. We wandered around a bit and checked out some of the shops. Two of our favorites were The Drift Collective, a store selling upcycled clothing, and Moonshine, a store selling art prints, jewelry, and clothing. We stopped and got some delicious chocolates at a shop called Byrne & Carlson. On our way home we stopped in Portsmouth again and had a delicious meal at The Press Room. We love to support local businesses and artists whether we’re at home or on the road. Portsmouth had tons of local, independent shops and eateries to check out.

Vermont

I have always loved the vibes in Vermont. The landscapes are breathtaking, with lush green forests and roads winding through the mountains. It’s also got an outdoorsy, hippy sort of culture that really fits my style. We arrived in Vermont and stayed at Jamaica State Park in the Green Mountain National Forest. The park had a river, a nice hiking trail to a lookoff, and it was pretty quiet when we went in early October.

I’d like to work up to van camping in wilder locations. This was our first time adventuring in our converted sprinter van so we wanted to take advantage of the conveniences of a bathroom and guaranteed place to sleep for the night.

Our highlights in Vermont were the Lye Brook Falls hiking trail, and having dinner at Honeypie. Lye Brook Falls was about 6km in and back, with a 125ft waterfall. It was dog-friendly. We didn’t see a sign saying that dogs had to be on leash. Most dogs we encountered were on a leash but it was a bit of a mix. Honeypie was amazing! There were vegetarian options and they had delicious soft serve ice cream.

New York

New York is technically not part of New England but it was the final destination of our trip before we turned around to head home. We were here for one thing; the famous Moosewood vegetarian restaurant. I have been vegetarian for about 10 years so it’s always fun for me to go to a vegetarian or vegan restaurant and be able to order anything off the menu. If you aren’t familiar with Moosewood, they are well-known amongst vegetarian cooks. They’ve been open for 50 years and put out cookbooks for most of that time. I have two of their cookbooks at home and picked up a third one there.

Since we made the trek specifically to try this restaurant, we went once for lunch and the next night for dinner. We ate on their patio, which was dog-friendly. I can attest that the food truly was incredible. I’ve eaten a lot of veggie burgers in my day and theirs was one of the best I’ve ever had. If you get the chance to go, it’s worth the trip!

We stayed at Buttermilk Falls State Park, conveniently located just outside of Ithica (home of Moosewood). Buttermilk Falls had a nice hike with stairs leading up one side of the falls and a pathway on the other. The hike was just 2.3km round-trip but it was pretty much straight up a mountain.

We loved living out of our camper van and exploring New England for the week and a half we were away. A road trip was the perfect way to spend our honeymoon.

You can see the spots I’ve mentioned in this post mapped on a Google My Map.