New England looms large in the imagination of many travellers to America’s east coast. It bringing to mind pristine Ivy League college towns, the preppy sailing clubs of fashion photo shoots, shucked oysters from quaint shacks, awe-inspiring mountains and auburn-hued forest. Yet it’s possible to combine all the majesty of the mountains and idyllic beaches with breaks to two of America’s most captivating cities: New York and Boston. Why settle for one city, when you can see New York and Boston in one visit?
CULTURE TO COAST
Head into New York and spend a few nights in Manhattan wandering world renowned museums such as MoMA and the Guggenheim and feasting on all the cultural spoils of the metropolis, before hitting the road towards Cape Cod. Hug the dramatic coastline until you reach the leafy Connecticut college town of New Haven – although save your hunger for your arrival in Providence in Rhode Island. This former factory town has cleverly reinvented itself as a culinary capital, with many of America’s top chefs cutting their teeth here.
As home to Rhode Island School of design, Providence’s design stores are the stuff of dreams. Swing by the beautifully restored Arcade Providence – America’s oldest indoor mall and peruse design emporiums such as Clover and Home-style. Leaving Provinence, take a detour to Newport, an 18th-century port with the highest concentration of surviving colonial buildings of any other city in the USA. Chi-Chi Newport is the archetypal wealthy Rhode Island harbour town, so spend a day on the water sipping local craft beers aboard the M/V Gansett while gazing at Jacqueline Kennedy’s childhood home, Hammersmith Farm.
BE INSPIRED
It’s not a trip to New England without some time eating lobster and lounging on the beaches of Cape Cod, and Provincetown has the most spirit. The writers Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neil, Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut, and artists Jackson Pollock and Charles Hawthorne, found inspiration here. Today galleries line the main drag, Commercial Street, or you can rent a bike and head into the dunes, to explore the beach shacks where artists found solace?
Wind up in Boston, the fiercely progressive yet history-rich academic heavyweight of the East Coast. There’s just enough time for freshly-shucked oysters before you fly home.