USA holiday 2020 - where to start?

[ErikaJayne]

Firstly, I know there’s a MN travel section, but I wanted to capture as many opinions as possible.

We’ve decided that we want to visit the US next summer for about 2 weeks to travel around the east coast. We know that we want to fly to Boston and visit New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

Where do we begin? We’ve traveled a fair bit, but only really Europe. I’ve looked at BA’s website, but flights next year are currently only available to mid-May.

Questions:

• Would it be much cheaper to go at Spring break in April? Flights in April 2020 currently work out at about £450 return each (very reasonable, I thought). Don’t know what they’d be late July?

• Hotels - which website to use? Any particular brand recommendations?

• Budget - it’s most massive, so we’d like to do a mixture of spending conservatively on some things, and splashing out on some of the ‘must do’ treats. Is America as cheap as people used to say?

Recommendations - fire away, please!

Oh, there’ll be 4 of us - me, DH and 2 teenage DC. We like shopping, eating, sports, site seeing....the usual.

@GreySk1es we're just in the process of selling our holiday home near Stowe - never did get to Ben and Jerry's and the best ice cream shop IC Scoops has closed down

Thanks for the tips

😂Oh my goodness those harbour pics. I can’t wait. Only thing is I know I’m not going to want to go home. It must be such a lovely area to live in. I can see why so few Americans have passports. You can just jump in a car and drive to amazing places you’ll never see the whole of without even going abroad. Maine has always had a pull for me I don’t know why, never been.

Re B&J I can’t believe I’m wasting a morning of our brief Vermont leg there. 🙄It’s kind of a trade off for all the museums we’ll be dragging them round in NYC 😂I’m kind of looking forward to the post teenage years when it’ll be just the two of us and we can explore the US and East Coast more,far cheaper.

As an aside do you get much rain/ poor weather in New England during August?

It's all relative. We live in Dublin for the rest of the year. It tends to be short, torrential downpours and thunder and lightning rather than constant drizzle. You'll just miss foliage season too.

We’re going to Portland for a day! En route to Sebago Harbour for a night, really wish we were staying longer than a night there but dh wanted longer in Acadia.

Sebago Harbor or Sebasco Harbor? If Sebasco, you'll be right by Popham. And also if Sebasco make sure you go to the games room and play free candlepin bowling. Also the 2-hour paddleboard course there is fun to do.

Acadia is worth spending a fair bit of time in. I love hikes at Gorham Mountain and Thunder Hole, The Bubbles, and Parkman Mountain, but I don't think there are any bad hikes there. Jordan Pond restaurant is worth a visit although you'll probably have to wait for a table. If you're at Jordan Pond Restaurant then a lovely short relatively unused trail is the Jordan Stream Trail which takes you to Cobblestone Bridge.

Just to warn you, Cadillac Mountain at dawn is like a zoo. I think this year for the first time the National Park service is planning on having people make bookings to visit really popular places such as Cadillac at dawn. It is worth doing any other time of day - the views are amazing.

Oh not much bad weather in August - you may have the odd day of rain but unlikely.

Yes you’re right it’s Sebasco! I wanted to stay 2 nights but we’re only staying one. Maybe we could visit Popham as we leave. I have a feeling we’ll be returning.

Thanks for the tip re Cadillac. Should we not bother with Dawn and how do you book if so?

The forums on trip advisor is what you need. There is one specifically for road trips. Be careful of air b&b in NYC as in some cases it is illegal

We have done a few of these trips, and usually book flights and care hire together as a package through Expedia. You can add on accommodation at a later stage snd still get the discount, or separately with Booking.com

It can be expensive to pick up and drop off hire cars at different points, which is why we’ve found better value with Expedia

Just wanted to say Vermont is lovely, we liked it best of the New England States we visited. Upstate New York was also very pleasant for scenery and general niceness of people, roads, restaurants etc.
For hotels, Hampton Inns are not quite 'budget' hotels but they are not expensive for what you get, very roomy with good beds, but they tend to be in not-so-great areas, IME. Not dreadful, just a bit meh.
Some Hamptons have a 'coffee and muffin' breakfast included.
Also I second the tip to go for a kitchenette if possible, and don't have hotel breakfasts unless it's included in the room rate, you can get good breakfasts much cheaper in coffee shops and diners.

@GreySk1es I have to pinch myself that I'm living here. It really is fantastic. And we've travelled a lot here but I've still not seen a tiny bit of what there is to see. It's SO diverse. I've fallen in love with the place.

How did you end up there?

Thanks for the tip re Cadillac. Should we not bother with Dawn and how do you book if so

It looks like they won't bring in booking till 2020 so you should be able to just drive up it this year. If you can avoid doing it at the weekend and allow plenty of time for parking you should be OK. www.pressherald.com/2019/03/25/acadia-national-park-proposing-parking-reservations-for-cadillac-mountain-sand-beach/

I worked here for a couple of summers and the kids I was looking after got chicken pox so we were quarantined on a tiny island for weeks. DH was the boat captain there and I was very bored.

Today's view.

Bet that is the first time you’ve been thankful for chicken pox.😂

Where on Earth is that, it’s just gorgeous?

@ErikaJayne I've just seen this thread and we are currently doing a similar trip with 3 kids, 2 of which are teenagers.
We flew to Boston just over a week ago - flights were £250 through Skyscanner (just keep looking every day) and yes, accommodation is expensive but there's ways of cutting the cost. All of the places we've stayed have been happy to put an extra bed in for the 5th person. We've stayed in various motels and hotels.
We spent 3 days in Boston staying in Cambridge, then hired a car (fairly cheap!) and headed north, destination Halifax in Canada stopping in Portland, Belfast Maine, and Moncton. Also stopped at various beaches for an hour or two.
Stayed in Halifax 4 nights and now heading to Bar Harbor (7 hours drive!) and tomorrow we'll go to Acadia national park. Then we're heading back to Portland, then Gloucester Massachusetts (I'm on a bit of an Edward Hopper tour) before back into Boston Saturday. That's the edited version! DM me if you want more info, prices, tips etc.
Found some great shops on the way, exchange rate is poor, but nice to find stuff you can't get at home (hello melatonin)

How are you liking the weather? You timed it well!

Also some ( not all hotels ) charge a resort fee. New York Las Vegas LA SAN Diego Miami all charge around 30-40 dollars a night on top of the advertised room price
I’m looking at doing Niagara Falls and NewYork next year and the “resort fee “ for New York adds a further £200 a week on top of the hotel price
Even if you pay for the hotel in advance when you arrive they take an imprint if card and when you leave you they charge this amount to your card so you could easily get home to a extra bill of 400 pounds plus for two weeks