US road trip beginning and ending in New York..

[Littlefiendsusan]

.. For 2 weeks this summer with a 10 and 8 yr old and a 22 month old. We have a vague idea of doing a loop, along the east coast,taking in Boston and Cape Cod.
Would going to Niagara Falls be too ambitious?
Has anyone done a similar trip and have any advice/recommendations re must-see places, places to avoid etc?

I'd skip the Niagara Falls part of this and stick to the Eastern Seaboard instead. Driving distances in the US can be vast (Boston to Niagara Falls driving distance for instance is further than driving from London to Edinburgh!).

Will you be dropping off the car in a different city to where you begin the journey?.

I thought Niagara Falls were very disappointing, touristy town not unlike somewhere like Blackpool and the falls themselves are in the town and so don't really have much majesty. New England is lovely though:) If you can do a one way drive and then fly back to NYC I would otherwise you are going to be doing an awful lot of driving. We did a trip from Boston up through to Maine and stopped for a few day at Bar Harbour which was a lovely place and would be great for your older children. Also drove from NYC to Western Canada, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to go that far!

My children are great travelers, but I don't know how much time in a car I'd plan with a toddler! If you are using Google maps to estimate traveling time I'd add on a fair bit extra, our experience from traveling fair bit in North America is that the timing always fall between our TomTom and Google maps.

Oh, I love Cape Cod Chatham and Harwich Port in particular are lovely.

We flew to Boston and a few days later hired a car and stayed in two towns on Cape Cod. Great beaches, food, pretty towns and plenty to see.

We then drove back to Boston and dropped the car off near the station. We took the train to New York and then flew home a few days later, from NY.

However, I would probably skip NY with a toddler and go further into the New England countryside after Cape Cod, or maybe travel a bit further up the East Coast, North of Boston. There would be plenty to keep everyone interested and you can plan a more leisurely pace. I think your original itinerary is too ambitious. The road from Boston to Cape Cod is busy but it is a lovely place to visit. I would leave NY until your 22 month old is about 5, at least, or leave them behind, if you can, and do a city break with your older children.

Interesting about Niagara Atilla, I've heard that too.
As we booked using dh's air miles and did it last minute, only flights to NY were available for our dates so we are stuck with having to loop back on ourselves.
Milly I hear you, but the toddler has no choice! We feel life has been put on hold over the last 2 years, adjusting to having a baby in the house after such a long time. It's the older dc's childhoods now and I guess that's what spurring us to do this.
Thanks for all your insights, we will probably scale things down, and explore a smaller area but in more detail.

Could you get an internal flight to the US - our was less than $100pp - that way you could pick up the hire car in boston and have more days at the cape which I'm sure the kids will prefer.