East coast road trip

Kalaar kururuc

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
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Hi folks,

I received some great advice for my Utah and Colorado holiday last year, and now I'm back for the next one.

First, a bit of background:
  • A few years ago, my wife and I took a NY > Boston road trip, following the coast pretty much the entire way, with a quick 2-night sprint to Niagara, and we both loved it.
  • The wife and I have both been to Manhattan several times; neither of my kids has.
  • I had a business trip to Old Town Alexandria last autumn, and enjoyed the little free time I had to see various museums, the National Mall, etc. Wifey and kids have never been.
Now, we want to go back with the kids. I'm hoping this will be 2026, but it may end up being 2027, in which case my boys will be 10 and 7 years old.

The basic itinerary would be: fly into Washington, spend a few days in Alexandria, then make our way north to NY. After NY, we'd probably do similar to our previous trip, roughly: New Haven, Providence, Woods Hole, Plymouth. This time I'd drive passed Boston to tag on Portsmouth, Portland, and maybe an overnight near Waterbury to see the Ben and Jerry's factory, then back to Boston for a few days before the flight home.

Between Alexandria and NY are Philly and Baltimore, can I safely skip those? I'm sure they both have some highlights, but they don't exactly excite me, and it's only about 4 hours from Washington to Manhattan, so I don't need to break the drive.

NY, I know a lot of folks think it's a shit hole, but if you've never been, and just hit up the tourist stuff, I think it's worth a couple of days, especially for the kids who have never been anywhere like it.

Any ideas of places to not miss on that rough route would be much appreciated. I'm at the very early planning stage, so I'm open to suggestions.


Thanks in advance!
 
Denamian

Denamian

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Kalaar kururuc said:
NY, I know a lot of folks think it's a shit hole, but if you've never been, and just hit up the tourist stuff, I think it's worth a couple of days, especially for the kids who have never been anywhere like it.
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While there's plenty of things to do in NYC, there is plenty of different stuff to do if you want to actually leave the NYC area. Definitely more outdoorsy type things if you want to head into the Catskills or Adirondacks.
 
Kalaar kururuc

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
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544
Thanks, we'll absolutely be hitting some of the outdoor stuff. We've got 3 weeks so I was also considering a couple of days up at Acadia. I want to see about increasing my kids' junior ranger badge collection, so we'll seeing various historical sites too.
 
Lanx

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
71,671
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Kalaar kururuc said:
Hi folks,

I received some great advice for my Utah and Colorado holiday last year, and now I'm back for the next one.

First, a bit of background:
  • A few years ago, my wife and I took a NY > Boston road trip, following the coast pretty much the entire way, with a quick 2-night sprint to Niagara, and we both loved it.
  • The wife and I have both been to Manhattan several times; neither of my kids has.
  • I had a business trip to Old Town Alexandria last autumn, and enjoyed the little free time I had to see various museums, the National Mall, etc. Wifey and kids have never been.
Now, we want to go back with the kids. I'm hoping this will be 2026, but it may end up being 2027, in which case my boys will be 10 and 7 years old.

The basic itinerary would be: fly into Washington, spend a few days in Alexandria, then make our way north to NY. After NY, we'd probably do similar to our previous trip, roughly: New Haven, Providence, Woods Hole, Plymouth. This time I'd drive passed Boston to tag on Portsmouth, Portland, and maybe an overnight near Waterbury to see the Ben and Jerry's factory, then back to Boston for a few days before the flight home.

Between Alexandria and NY are Philly and Baltimore, can I safely skip those? I'm sure they both have some highlights, but they don't exactly excite me, and it's only about 4 hours from Washington to Manhattan, so I don't need to break the drive.

NY, I know a lot of folks think it's a shit hole, but if you've never been, and just hit up the tourist stuff, I think it's worth a couple of days, especially for the kids who have never been anywhere like it.

Any ideas of places to not miss on that rough route would be much appreciated. I'm at the very early planning stage, so I'm open to suggestions.


Thanks in advance!
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this sounds like a lot of driving, i'm assuming you'd want to fly into dulles rather than reagan cuz the car selection would be better, i also remember hating reagan more, but then it might also depend on what you fly and which which airport to choose, i'm guessing you want to stay in old town, in that case you might want to forgo renting a car until you drive out of dc, just take a uberx or the blue line will get you back and forth from old town to dc easily

idk how your kids are, but i just spent 2 weeks w/ 2 neices 10/8 and they were done after 4 hours at any event, and always wanted to head back to the airbnb to either sit in the hot tub or ask me to play switch/kirby w/ em

these are active girls too, swim team/soccer team, choir, they do all that shit, but were just done mid afternoon, i believe you'll really have to take that into account. (i'm sure you know the difference between a vacay between adults and doing one w/ kids)
 
Kalaar kururuc

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
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It's about one-third the mileage of my last road trip, around Colorado and Utah, and in about the same time frame (three weeks), so driving isn't too much of an issue; the kids will also be two years older than on the last trip. I agree with you on the difference between having and not having kids, though; it's far less relaxing having a holiday now that I've got them. And to be fair, the holiday is now less about what I want to do, than it is what I want to do that the kids will put up with. I also think you're probably right about not picking the car up until were leaving Old Town, I'd just end up with it parked up anyway. I'm not taking any trains though, not with 2 kids and all my luggage in tow, I'll just take a taxi and eat the cost.

My alternative trip would be to fly into Las Vegas and road trip north to Yellowstone via the Grand Canyon, SLC, etc, then fly back out of SLC, or hop from Bozeman back to LV for the big flight home. Because fuck doing another massive loop just to drop a hire car back off at the pickup location. On our last trip, we liked Steamboat Springs well enough, but I could have easily skipped there and the Dinosaur Monument, and just gone from Denver to SLC (via Moab etc), and that would have saved me around 500 miles of driving.
 
Lanx

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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Kalaar kururuc said:
It's about one-third the mileage of my last road trip, around Colorado and Utah, and in about the same time frame (three weeks), so driving isn't too much of an issue; the kids will also be two years older than on the last trip. I agree with you on the difference between having and not having kids, though; it's far less relaxing having a holiday now that I've got them. And to be fair, the holiday is now less about what I want to do, than it is what I want to do that the kids will put up with. I also think you're probably right about not picking the car up until were leaving Old Town, I'd just end up with it parked up anyway. I'm not taking any trains though, not with 2 kids and all my luggage in tow, I'll just take a taxi and eat the cost.

My alternative trip would be to fly into Las Vegas and road trip north to Yellowstone via the Grand Canyon, SLC, etc, then fly back out of SLC, or hop from Bozeman back to LV for the big flight home. Because fuck doing another massive loop just to drop a hire car back off at the pickup location. On our last trip, we liked Steamboat Springs well enough, but I could have easily skipped there and the Dinosaur Monument, and just gone from Denver to SLC (via Moab etc), and that would have saved me around 500 miles of driving.
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i just meant if you stayed in old town, all you have to take is the blue line it takes you to dc and the surrounding area

if youre gonna spend a good chunk of time in nyc, i don't see why you shouldn't just skip philly, and other cities

why munch on hamburger when steak is the real main course
 
Lanx

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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Kalaar kururuc said:
Ah, I misunderstood. Yes, I'd just jump on the metro to see the Mall etc.
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are you planning to stay in manhattan or the other boroughs to save money on hotel?

i am going to link the NEW subway map b/c it will be on the trains (i can't read it as well b/c i grew up w/ the old map)

do not stay anywhere where your stop is on any number train
any blue a/c/e
any j/z line
and obviously nothing north of 125th st (bronx)

(of course there are exceptions like the 7 train, but it's not like your gonna stay in flushing, i mean i do, but you wouldn't, but you could if you wanted a nicer chinatown)
 
Kalaar kururuc

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
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I'd think Manhattan would be the base for NY. Probably only 2-3 days, which is long enough to see the tourist attractions, such as going up the Empire State Building, Times Square, etc. But then off into New England for the majority of the tour.
 
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