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Take a fall foliage tour through quintessential New England
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Fall foliage turns a beautiful shade of red.
There are spectacular fall foliage drives in nearly every corner of North America, from North Carolina to Oregon and Nova Scotia to British Columbia. But the one destination that tends to be most associated with the beauty of autumn is New England, where annual leaf-peeping excursions can cause bottlenecks on the lanes and byways of the six-state region.
Visitors who come for the colorful leaves also enjoy sampling the local culture, as they wander through colonial towns, take photos of covered bridges, pick apples at rural orchards, and warm up with cups of steaming cider. So what better way to plan a fall foliage driving tour of New England than to plot a route that also enables you to discover some of the region's most picturesque towns and traditional experiences?
Here, then, is a fall foliage road trip through quintessential New England. This excursion is focused on Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts (with apologies to Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine, which have wonderful fall sites of their own). The total driving time is just under 20 hours, but you’ll likely want to take a week or so to enjoy the drive and see the sites along the way. A Google map of the trip is posted at the end of the article.
Massachusetts: Boston to the Berkshires
Boston is a nice starting place and a beautiful city in the autumn. Check out the changing leaves in the Public Gardens or along the Charles River. If you time your trip right, you can spend an October afternoon watching crew races during the Head of the Charles regatta and then wander around nearby Harvard Square in Cambridge.
Just 20 miles northwest of Boston is Concord, the first of many quintessential New England towns you’ll stumble across on this journey. The fall scenery is lovely at Walden Pond, but you should also visit the Old North Bridge, where the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired, and explore the town’s literary history. Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott. They all have connections to Concord and are buried near each other in the town’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
From Concord, Route 2 is a nice drive all the way across northern Massachusetts. You can think about dipping down to the Five Colleges area and wandering around the fun and funky college towns of Northampton and Amherst, but you should be certain to drive Route 2 through northwestern Massachusetts. This is the Mohawk Trail, which is especially beautiful when you reach the Berkshires and the small college community of Williamstown. Take time to explore Mount Greylock and the scenic byway to its 3,491-foot summit.
Western Vermont: Bennington to Burlington
Vermont is chock full of classic autumn landscapes. Just over the border from Massachusetts is Bennington, on the edge of the Green Mountain National Forest. There are five covered bridges in the area, which is home to the Vermont Covered Bridge Museum. You can also pay tribute to the poet Robert Frost, who had a home nearby and is buried in Old Bennington Cemetery. If you like literature, Frost is one of many New England writers you can commune with during this trip.
From Bennington, head north on Route 7 for three hours to Shelburne, on the shores of Lake Champlain. The drive is lovely and you can feel free to stop in Rutland or Middlebury along the way. Eventually, you’ll reach the Shelburne Museum, which has more than 150,000 Americana artifacts and folk art spread across several dozen historic homes, barns and meeting houses. While in town you also might want to have a New England apple-picking experience at popular Shelburne Orchards.
Just a few miles north is Burlington, Vermont’s largest town. Burlington also borders Lake Champlain and has a beautiful downtown area. You can enjoy the pedestrian Church Street Marketplace, go for walks along the lake, or enjoy some of the great restaurants the city has to offer.
Route 100 in Vermont
One of the most spectacular fall foliage drives in the country is Route 100, which slices across central Vermont. Not long after leaving Burlington, you’ll pick up Route 100 heading south. First, though, two must-see stops in Waterbury are Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and the Cold Hollow Cider Mill. Ben & Jerry’s offers fun tours of its ice cream factory, while Cold Hollow is a popular attraction where visitors can see how apples are mashed and pressed into cider.
As you meander south along Route 100, you’ll run across a lot of gorgeous Vermont scenery. Quaint village greens, church steeples, and roadside farm stands. One of the towns you’ll drive through is Weston, home to the nationally known Vermont Country Store. You can make a pit stop to shop for classic Yankee foods and home goods before turning east toward the picturesque village of Grafton. There, once you’ve recovered from the sense that you wandered back in time to olde New England, make sure to visit the Grafton Village Cheese Factory, where you can watch Vermont cheddar being made and then enjoy a cheese tasting.
Vermont and New Hampshire: Connecticut River Valley
From Grafton, you’re going to turn north again for a bit. If you’d like, you can take a short detour to see the Windsor-Cornish Covered Bridge, the longest covered wooden bridge in the country. At this point, you’re in the Connecticut River Valley, an appealing region that straddles the border of Vermont and New Hampshire. Your next destination, though, is Woodstock, which is yet another Vermont community that bills itself as “the quintessential New England village.” There is even a covered bridge in the middle of town. For a glimpse into traditional New England life, check out the Billings Farm & Museum, which is both a working farm and a museum of rural history. You can visit milking barns, see how a modern dairy farm operates, and explore exhibits about 19th century farm life.
About a half-hour drive northeast and you’ll have crossed the New Hampshire border and arrived in the delightful town of Hanover, home to Dartmouth College. Stop and have a drink or a meal and enjoy the college vibe. Then drive north out of Hanover for about an hour along the Connecticut River Scenic Byway until you reach Route 112.
New Hampshire: The White Mountains
From here, you’ll head east to the Kancamangus Highway, another road that is legendary for its fall foliage views. You can follow the Kancamangus for 35 miles from Lincoln to Conway, and then enjoy the White Mountain Trail National Scenic Byway, a loop drive full of stunning scenery that will return you to Lincoln.
Along the way, you’ll pass through Bretton Woods, where you may enjoy a trip on the Mount Washington Cog Railway. One of the steepest railroad tracks in the country will take you to New England’s highest peak and provide you with more spectacular fall views.
After your loop of the White Mountains, your fall foliage journey through quintessential New England is complete. It’s about a three-hour drive back to Boston, where you began this trek.
Map and directions
Here is a map of this trip. If you click on the “fall foliage” link, it will take you to a larger map and more detailed information about the journey.
View Fall foliage tour through quintessential New England in a larger map
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Photo credit: Dori via Wikimedia Commons.
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