The Isles of Shoals are a group of small islands six miles from shore in Portsmouth Harbor. A wonderful day-trip is to take the M/V “Thomas Laighton” to Star Island for a sun-splashed sea-spray picnic. Daily mid-June to Sept. $25, ages 6-12 $15. Isles of Shoals Steamship Company, 315 Market St., Portsmouth. 800-441-4620, 603-431-5500; islesofshoals.com
A guide to New Hampshire’s best ocean beaches.
Connecticut Hammonasset Beach State Park Boasting 900 acres, Hammonasset is two miles of sandy beach with mild ocean temperatures (we’ve enjoyed the sea there well into September) and a light surf, perfect for swimming, hiking, and surfcasting. More than 550 well-maintained campsites make for an inexpensive beach vacation when the big resort hotels are overflowing. […]
The New Hampshire seacoast is the Lichtenstein of New England–a small, generally overlooked principality much beloved by the few who know it, and given little thought by the rest of us. That’s ripe for change. In an era when the long weekend has replaced the two-week vacation (itself a replacement of the months-long summer sojourn […]
By David Lyon and Patricia Harris New Hampshire is Yankee country, and our woodsy home town of Dublin is right in the middle of it. To the east lies Peterborough, with its famed MacDowell Colony of painters, poets and thinkers. To the west, the handsome college town of Keene boasts one of the widest Main […]
When I returned home with my son — Henry, age 11 — from an outing at SkyVenture New Hampshire, my wife greeted us at the door. “Did they let you do the jump with the thunderstorms and all that rain?” she wondered. I looked at Patty closely: “You thought I was going to take Henry […]
The most dramatic way to enter the White Mountains region is to follow I-93 and Route 3 north through Franconia Notch, then head east along Route 302 to Route 16. The 75-mile winding drive is one of sweeping views, turnoffs to logging roads and hiking trails, babbling brooks, waterfalls, and covered bridges. Just north of […]
YOU DON’T HAVE to be a hiker to enjoy New Hampshire’s majestic White Mountains, where roads lead into the heart of New England’s most renowned peaks. Make this drive and along the way you can visit inns and eateries with broad views of Mount Washington (New England’s highest peak at 6,288 feet) and the Presidential […]
Can it really be 25 years since “On Golden Pond” (much of which was filmed on New Hampshire’s Big Squam Lake) touched our hearts on its way to winning three Academy Awards? Yes, and you can join the anniversary celebration this month at Plymouth State University. On September 22, the movie screens again. The next […]
The most dramatic way to enter the White Mountains region is to follow I-93 and Route 3 north through Franconia Notch, then head east along Route 302 to Route 16. The 75-mile winding drive is one of sweeping views, turnoffs to dirt logging roads and hiking trails, babbling brooks, waterfalls, and covered bridges. Just north […]
Twenty-six years after the film, the image still lingers: Henry Fonda and Kate Hepburn, in the twilight of their lives, come for another glorious summer on Golden Pond. The movie and its 10 Oscar nominations created a valentine to a certain kind of timelessness, and a certain kind of lake. It was based on screenwriter […]
Newfound Lake, which is 2-1/2 miles wide and seven miles long, reaches depths of up to 180 feet and is fed by eight springs, and the water is considered the most pristine in the state.
