The beginning of the road trip. We were clearly still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. lol
It took us around 8 hours to get to our first stop. This was taken a little ways into the road trip.
Last August, we set out on an impromptu road trip to see as much of New England as we could. We didn’t have a real agenda or a set place to stay every night, just a general idea of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. We left Uniontown around 5:00 in the evening and set out for Newport, Rhode Island, our first desired destination. We arrived a little after 2AM in Middletown and we can’t seem to find any photos from arrival. We’re assuming because we were probably pretty dead tired at that point.
We stayed at the Middletown, Ramada Inn, which is just outside of Newport, the first New England destination we wanted to explore. So, the next morning, we woke up bright and early, headed to Dunkin’ Donuts (which just so happened to be a few blocks down), got some coffee, and set out for Newport, RI. We LOVED Newport so much. It ended up being one of our favorite stops of the entire road trip. The following photos were taken there.
We stopped a while to look at all of the boats on the wharf and people fishing! It was so beautiful.
We kind of crashed this hotel because it had its own lighthouse and some beautiful views.
This is one of the many photos taken with a lighthouse. We have quite a few for sure…
We found this beautiful location en route to the Newport Mansions so we did an impromptu photo sesh. The water was beautiful and across the street, people flew kites at a local park.
We LOVED the drive up the coast so much!
Found this beautiful beach on our walk to see yet another lighthouse!
We drove to see the Newport Mansions. We stopped and looked at The Breakers, but didn’t do the paid tour of that specific mansion. We decided to do our own (free) tour by taking the Cliff Walk because there were so many other beautiful mansions to see and time was of the essence!
We used several lighthouse maps we found on Pinterest to help guide our tour of the coast.
We stopped and got crab cakes in downtown Newport for lunch. YUM!
After spending the day in Newport (we seriously knew our way around by the end of the day), we set out for Cape Cod, MA and made it there by evening. We stayed in Falmouth that night, which we incorrectly called “Foul Mouth” until someone informed us it was “Foul-myth.” Oops. We stayed at The Holiday Inn Falmouth Cape Cod because it was really close to everything we wanted to do/see that day!
We used Snapchat to Geotag our photos and saved them to our phones along the way so we would remember all of the locations we visited! Most of the photos we took were on our cameras which didn’t geotag.
How did we stay awake along the way? Well, we listened to lots of music really loud and laughed a lot. See example below (this is only one of many):
We made it to Cape Cod by sunset and got the prettiest shots on the beach!
We got up early the next day (we were so excited to see more and had so much to do, we didn’t sleep much) and went to breakfast at another favorite local place in Falmouth called “Crabapple’s.” Ashley had eggs benedict (her favorite breakfast of all time) and Erin had banana nut french toast with the option of homemade maple syrup made in Vermont, which cost a little extra, but was totally worth it. Next, we headed to a quiet and private little Cap Cod beach some of the locals told us about to get away from the crowds called “Silver Beach Harbor!” The locals called it “Old Silverback Beach.” There were very few people there and we took a million pictures. There were lots of beautiful sailboats and a few families just relaxing.The prettiest little fish would swim right up to the shore and around our feet. Erin would try to catch them– Ashley, not so much. lol
Erin enjoying her coffee after breakfast at CrapApple’s before we hit the beach and spent some time working on our New England tans.
I’m sure no one knew we weren’t locals. You couldn’t even tell we were from Pittsburgh…
After staying at the beach a while, we hit the road again and headed back to town. In Falmouth, we were able to catch the ferry to Oaks Bluff, Martha’s Vineyard! We set sail at 3:00PM. The ride to Martha’s Vineyard was about 20 minutes and we planned our next two days in Boston on the way there. While in Martha’s Vineyard, we ate lunch right on the water (which we learned was super expensive lobster Mac’N’ Cheese when we realized both pastas totaled to $84.00, but we decided the fresh lobster and amazing rich, creamy cheese made it worth the money and calories), chatted with a real-life sailor, shopped at the original Vineyard Vines flagship store, got new Alex & Ani (Cape Cod bracelets), checked out all of the little touristy shops, had humongous cookies from Back Door Donuts, got LOTS of steps in, and enjoyed the sunshine and breeze from the water.
We watched the sun set over Martha’s Vineyard and upon return to Falmouth, set out for Boston, MA, where we decided to spend two days of our trip because we loved it so much.
We stayed at the Kimpton Nine Zero Hotel right in downtown Boston for two nights. We were able to walk pretty much everywhere. We walked about 25 miles when all was said and done, but we left nothing unseen!
Our first morning in Boston, we woke up, showered, and took on the city. We set out for breakfast, but first… we visited the closest Dunkin’ for coffee en route to brunch. The best part about New England is that there were very few Starbucks and about a million Dunkin’ Donuts. You see, Dunkin’ Donuts was founded in 1950, in Quincy, MA. Taught ya something, didn’t we?
Fun Fact: The Dunkin’ Donuts locations in Boston provide you with a styrofoam cup for around your plastic iced coffee cup because “Boston people don’t like their hands to get cold from iced coffee.”
Our hotel was located right on the well-known “Freedom Trail” so there was TONS of history all around us!
We ate brunch at “Blunch,” a restaurant featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, and loved it, of course. Ashley got breakfast (her fav) and Erin got lunch (and had Guy’s choice– “The Bird “)! The restaurant was SO small with seating enough for maybe 10, but the people pouring in the little place was incredible. It’s definitely a popular place– for take-out, too!
We walked through Trinity Church in Copley Square, the church featured in the movie, Natural Treasure. It was beautiful!
This was as close as we got to going inside. Erin wouldn’t let Ashley take a tour because she wanted her to save it for when she returns this spring! Ashley was not happy about this, but took in what she could from outside the gates.
We put on 15 miles that first day in Boston. We spent a good bit of the day on Newbury Street, where all of the shops are! They have upscale stores like Louis Vuitton and the cutest and largest Alex & Ani store either of us have ever been in– and the street itself is just adorable! We loved the Benefit cosmetics store and found some pretty amazing products there! The girls that worked there were super sweet and gave us some awesome recommendations for our trip.
We also walked all the way to Fenway Park, which wasn’t exactly close, but we loved seeing the city along the way! We found TWO pretty huge malls with amazing stores. Ashley was beside herself excited when we finally made it to see Fenway Park and we spent a good bit of time walking around and taking photos of the baseball park and its surroundings.
That night, when it finally was getting dark, we walked back to the Nine Zero, fixed up a bit, and headed to Quincy Market (great place for food and shopping) to the Cheers restaurant– which was so cute!
Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name.. No one knew our name, but it was a fun and laid back place for dinner, so we enjoyed it! After dinner, we walked down to the waterfront and watched the boats coming in to the harbor. The city was beautiful all lit up at night, too!
We put in a few hours of sleep and woke up early to enjoy our last day in New England. We decided to spend it taking in just a little more of Boston. We walked another 10 miles before we said our goodbyes and checked out of The Nine Zero. We walked across town and ate breakfast at an artsy little place called The Friendly Toast!
That afternoon, we headed back to Uniontown. We did SO much in those four days that recounting it all makes our heads spin a little! We only made it as far north as Boston, which means we plan to go back again and see what else New England has to offer!
So, what are our travel tips to you to get the most accomplished in a few short days in New England?
- Only sleep when it’s dark out! We really didn’t sleep that much, but we weren’t sleep deprived. We had so much we wanted to see and do, so we got up and got moving early each morning.
- Do your own tours. Tours can be lengthy and expensive. Don’t waste your time unless it’s something you really want to do. Explore on your own.
- Google/Apple Maps is your friend! Set your GPS to walk and go explore.
- Pinterest ahead of time to determine the locations that are must-sees on your list and plan your route.
- Throw a ball cap and some sunnys on– and go! We didn’t spend much time getting ready in the mornings– especially around Cape Cod. We didn’t know anyone in those little beach towns and we had places to go and things to do!
- Walk everywhere! If you can handle walking, only drive from city to city! By walking within each city, we got to see so much– and learn so much, too!
Happy trails!
xo,
Ash & Er
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