USATourist Community

 My wife and I are from Sydney Australia and we are planning to visit USA East Coast in October 09.
At present our plans include:

Arrival in Boston (4 days);

A 10 day self-drive tour of New England ending in Buffalo.  
If possible, we would like to include a visit to Quebec City in this tour.

From Buffalo we plan to take AMTRAK to NYC (3 days) and Washington DC (3 days).

Then we would rent another car for 10/12 days and self-drive to Florida via Monticello, Blue Ridge Parkway, Charleston SC, Savannah GA and St Marys GA where we have a distant relative.  

We then plan to fly back to LA and Australia from Jacksonville FL.
My question is: Is this a realistic itinerary or is there too much driving?  Our intention is to stay two or three days in various locations along the way where practical.
Thanks in advance.

Jim Attrill 

Hi Jim,

I think your itinerary sounds reasonable.  You will be doing a lot of driving.  But you have allowed yourself time to do the drive and see the sights.  However one thing to be aware of is that the Blue Ridge Parkway is a scenic drive, which means a slow drive.  When you travel the interstate highways, you can make good time, passing slower vehicles.  But on the parkway, it will be difficult to pass those slow moving tourists and Recreational Vehicles.  Of course, you're going to be enjoying the drive, so you won't want to be moving too fast.  But a distance that you can cover in an hour on the interstate can take much longer on the BRP.

Also, I recommend not renting the 1st car until you are ready to leave Boston.  Boston has an excellent public transportation system.  And even though it is a major US city, it extremely walkable.

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 Hi Michelle,

Thank you for your previous advice.  We have progressed our planning a little further and have decided to drive from Boston to the Camden/Rockland area of Maine and stay there about 3 nights which should give us time to explore the mid Maine Coast.

Then we would go on to the White Mountains NH and Green Mountains VT for another 3 nights.  I am looking for somewhere that is within driving distance (max 2 hours) of both these areas.

After that I want to go back to CT/RI and stay another 2/3 nights before returning the car to Boston.

Then we would go to NYC (3) and on to Washington DC (3) by bus.

Thanks

Jim Attrill.

I do not know anything about the area near the White Mountains of New Hampshire, so I cannot offer any suggestions.  In Maine, however, I would recommend the Bar Harbor area.  That coastline is very scenic. There are some great National Parks in the area and it is more rural than the southern parts of the Maine coast.

If you are going from NYC to DC, I would recommend the AMTRAK.  It will be faster and more comfortable than the bus.  This is one of the few places in the USA where I can truly say that the train is the best option for travel.

I recommend that you try to be in New England at the beginning of October.  The great autumn spectacle of the leaves changing colors is typically early October.  By late October, the show might be over and you will see only bare trees.