New England Foliage Blog →
The Best Way to see Fall Foliage in New England
Seeing fall Foliage from a central location
by Jeff "Foliage" Folger
Dublin NH home of Yankee
Lake Chocorua in Tamworth NH
Albany Bridge off the Kangamagus
Greetings Fall Foliage Peepers
Sorry to everyone who noticed that this article didn't come out on Monday (my normal publishing day) I opened a link to a blog that I thought was friendly, it wasn't and it took me a day to put the Pandora back in the box.. What fun!
The emails, comments and forum questions are coming in and I'm pouring over the questions. Most are like this.
Hello Jeff, Happened across your blog and realized you might be able to provide some insight for us. We are Jerry and Marilyn from Minnesota. We are planning a trip to the New England area this fall hoping to see the beauty of the area. Neither of us has been there before. We are planning our trip between Sept 24 & Oct 30.
We looked at the Vacation rental by Owner website and found a place in Hampton Beach, NH which seemed like it would work as a location where we could do day trips into NH, Maine and Boston. As a couple we enjoy road trips. Our focus has never been the tourist attractions but rather the local flavor of an area. It's not the places you see but the people you meet that provide the greatest memories.
I have not looked at your site in depth yet but thought you might have recommendations on what you consider must see areas. I'm sure for us Minnesotans anything will be spectacular. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. Take care, Marilyn
Part of my answer was this: Hi guys, Hampton could work. Color in Hampton (being on the water) will be mid to late Oct as far as color changing itself. But from there is a ton of places to jump off to explore... From Hampton you can head across 101 to 93 and head north to the lakes region or even up into the White Mountains. I prefer to take the back roads myself and can while away an afternoon on route 125 or 16 heading up towards the White Mountains.
One very nice area is Tamworth and Lake Chocorua. There is a small dirt parking lot just off 16 (south of the town of Conway). I know you say you aren't very touristy but North Conway have the Swift and Saco river covered bridges. North Conway has a large group of outlet stores (and no sales tax).
From there you can head up into Jackson and the 16B loop through Jackson which can be a great little drive. Also there is a little place that my wife and I always stop at called Ravenwood. It's a local seller of local artisans creations and you have to go into the back garden to see all that he has there... from hobbit house doors to sculptures to carvings, it's truly an amazing collection of things to behold.
I will say this now!!!! Columbus day weekend is the 10-12th and it will be tough being on the roads near or around the white mountains (always a popular spot). You could head up into Maine towards Lake Sebago and just north of that is the towns of Norway, Mexico, Paris just to mention a few.. And you don't even have to bring your passport!
You should also pick up a Gazetteer for each state. These books cost about $19 but they are laden with places to see and have suggestions for you also. I hope this helps get you started on the planning for what you want to do. If you have any more questions let me know.
Jeff's Contest the winner gets six handmade cards (by me) with six of my images.
But you can't win if you don't play! You can put a guess in the comments below or in the forum or email me direct at jeff.foliage@gmail.com.
Remember you can also go to the forum on the Yankee Magazine website and click on the forums then go to the foliage forum and look for Jeff's contest Or you can just click here to go direct but the scenic route is more fun...
Did you know that Yankee is up on Facebook and Twitter? Well click on the links and you can get your updates all year long!
Yankee's Foliage Fan page on Facebook and Yankee on Twitter.
Autumn is getting close and I hope to hear from you throughout the rest of the summer that we have and if you have any questions please feel free to ask them here in the comments section or over in the foliage forum and I and the other forum members will do their best to answer them
Visit my Facebook fan page for Vistaphotography
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