Family getaways in New England,
ranked and drilled down.
Four full town guides, one page to pick between them. Our weekend getaways overview ranks every option by drive time; this page is about which one actually fits your family.
The best places to visit in New England, by what your family actually wants to do.
Calm bay beaches, a carousel, and a Martha's Vineyard day trip built around ice cream and candy. The easiest pace for the youngest kids.
Lenox, Stockbridge and Great Barrington, an easy hike with a real payoff, and Tanglewood's lawn.
Ice Castles, the Cog Railway, and skiing in winter; hiking and Woodstock Inn the rest of the year. The one we know deepest.
About 3 hours up the coast, no airport involved, the guide that proved the format works.
Cape Cod and the Berkshires: research-based, and we say so.
The White Mountains and Boothbay Harbor guides come from years of our own family trips there. Cape Cod and the Berkshires are built from our best research rather than a specific trip we have run with our own kids yet, and each guide says exactly that upfront. We have not taken the girls to Cape Ann or Newport, so neither appears in our guides.
What families ask us.
Which New England weekend getaway is best for young kids?
Cape Cod, for the combination of calm bay beaches, a carousel, and ice cream and candy stops built in. The White Mountains and the Berkshires both work well too, but Cape Cod's flat, beach-first pace is the easiest with the youngest kids.
Which getaway has the most to do year-round?
The White Mountains, by a wide margin. It is the one we have the deepest firsthand experience with across every season: Ice Castles and skiing in winter, hiking and the Cog Railway the rest of the year.
Which of these guides is the most detailed?
All four full guides (Boothbay Harbor, Cape Cod, the Berkshires and the White Mountains) follow the same format: a real itinerary, honest highlights, and what we would skip. Boothbay Harbor and the White Mountains carry the deepest firsthand detail; Cape Cod and the Berkshires are built from our best research rather than a specific family trip, and say so upfront in each guide.
What about Cape Ann or Newport?
We have not taken the girls to either, so we do not cover them. Our weekend getaways overview sticks to trips we have taken as a family, plus Cape Cod and the Berkshires, which are marked as research-based.
What are the best places to visit in New England with kids?
Our four full guides: Cape Cod for calm bay beaches, the Berkshires for small towns and an easy hike, the White Mountains for the outdoors year-round, and Boothbay Harbor for the Maine coast. Portland and Bar Harbor with Acadia are the other Maine places we have taken the girls, covered in Maine with kids. For dated reasons to go, see New England fall events and winter holiday events.