Travel Like An Expert | Best Guided Day Trips

12 Authentic Guided New England Day Trips.

Authenticity is the buzzword in travel these days, the chance to live and feel like a local, not a tourist. Thankfully, there are many opportunities in New England where you have the chance to go beyond the boilerplate tours and get a real feel for the region while being led by an expert on the subject. These dozen day trips strive for genuine authenticity and hopefully reward you with lasting memories:

MAINE

Bike to 5 Lighthouses in Portland with Summer Feet Cycling

Known for their weekend and week–long bike trips throughout Maine, Summer Feet Cycling now offers a half-day guided bike tour to five lighthouses in the Portland area. Running daily from Memorial Day to October 31^st, the 5-hour jaunt starts on a bike path alongside Willard Beach to Bug Light, which marks the entrance to the Portland Breakwater. From here, you’ll cycle on to the Spring Point Lighthouse, the Portland Harbor Museum, and Fort Preble, a 19th-century stone fort, before ending at the iconic Portland Head Light. Built in 1791 and sitting on a bluff perched out to sea, this exquisite white edifice has been painted by the likes of Edward Hopper. You’ll dine on lobster rolls from a food truck while no doubt peering at the schooners that make their way in and out of Portland Harbor.

www.summerfeet.net/trips/5-lighthouse-day-trip/

Spend An Afternoon with Diver Ed at Acadia National Park

Diver Ed spends the winter doing eight dives a day searching for scallops. In the summer, he acts as a naturalist taking families on boat rides off the Bar Harbor coast to find starfish, sea cucumbers, Jonah crabs, and, of course, lobster. He dives to depths of 40 feet to find these critters lurking on the shelf of the sea. Guests aboard his boat get a close–up look at the sea life from the large HD camera Diver Ed brings down with him, with images projected back to the boat. He even has a microphone that can be used underwater so he can talk while filming. Kids adore him, especially when he plops live lobsters on their heads for the perfect photo op.

http://divered.com

MASSACHUSETTS

Drive the Dunes of Cape Cod with Art’s Dune Tours

You must be doing something right if you’re still in business since 1946. Art’s Dune Tours is now run by Art Costa’s son, Rob. Spend an hour in an air–conditioned Suburban as you drive over the sand dunes on Provincetown’s Cape Cod National Seashore learning about the unique topography as well as the long-standing dune houses that still cling precariously to the shoreline. New in 2016 is a 3 ½-hour Land n’ Lake Tour that mixes the dune drive with a paddle on saltwater out of East Harbor. Lunch will be served on a lake atop a raft.

http://artsdunetours.org/

See the Warbler Migration at Historic Mount Auburn Cemetery

Waking up early to visit a cemetery might sound like a macabre undertaking, but Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is no ordinary cemetery. It was created on the outskirts of Boston in 1831 as America’s first rural or garden cemetery, a precursor to parks in urban areas. Today, more than 200,000 annual visitors come to visit the final resting place of a long list of luminaries in American arts and letters, like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Winslow Homer, and Buckminster Fuller. Yet others simply follow in the footsteps of Roger Tory Peterson, the renowned ornithologist who once led bird-watching walking tours here. The height of the spring migration for warblers usually happens around Mother’s Day each year. Bring your binocs and a naturalist from Mass Audubon will help you spot the scruffy yellow chin of the northern parula warbler.

www.massaudubon.org/get-outdoors/travel-tours

VERMONT

Mountain Bike the Kingdom Trails, Kingdom Tours

When it comes to the Northeast Kingdom, Vermont puts on its finest pastoral dress. Wave after wave of unspoiled hillsides form a vast sea of green while small villages and farms spread out in the distance under a few soaring summits. The region is also home to a legendary 150-mile biking circuit simply called the Kingdom Trails, linking former farming roads with slender singletrack trails. One moment, you’re biking leisurely behind a barn or dilapidated maple syrup shack, the next you’re zooming through the tall barren pines. In fact, it’s such a glorious network that you’ll want to keep biking even when your CamelBak runs dry. Kingdom Tours will design the perfect sampler, geared to all levels. http://www.mtbvt.com/archives/15693

Try Heady Topper on a Stowe Brewery Tour

The microbrew scene in New England has exploded over the past five years, especially in Vermont, where avid beer drinkers will stand in line for hours to snag a coveted 4-pack of the acclaimed, hoppy IPA they call Heady Topper. To deal with the overwhelming demand, The Alchemist, owners of Heady Topper, plan to debut a new brewery and retail store on Stowe’s Mountain Road the summer of 2016. Sample Heady Topper and a handful of other Stowe microbrews like the wonderful lager found at the new Trapp Family Lodge brewery, reminiscent of the Trapp family’s Austrian roots. The best part about the 3-hour tour offered by Umiak Outfitters is that you don’t have to drive, so feel free to indulge.

http://www.umiak.com/#!summer-stowe-brewery-tours/c1qri

RHODE ISLAND

Race a Genuine America’s Cup 12-meter Yacht in Newport

One of the most unique opportunities in Newport is the chance to sail aboard an authentic America’s Cup yacht that once raced in the actual competition. In this 3-hour racing experience, you have the rare opportunity to step into Dennis Conner’s soft-soled shoes. The boats include the Weatherly (1970 America’s Cup winner), Nefertiti (1962 defender’s trials), American Eagle (best known as Ted Turner’s stepping stone to America’s Cup victory) and Intrepid (the last

classic wooden yacht to defend The Cup in 1967 and 1970). You could be chosen to be a primary grinder (grinding a winch as fast as possible so that the foresail can change direction), timekeeper, or handler of the mainsheet or rope.

http://www.americascupcharters.com

Take a Federal Hill Food Tour with Chef Cindy Salvato

Federal Hill, the “Little Italy” of Providence, has always been known as the culinary heartbeat of the city, the neighborhood to find mom and pop restaurants serving homemade pasta with a sublime tomato sauce. Who better to show you around these Providence streets than Cindy Salvato, a local pastry chef who taught at Johnson & Wales University. On her 3-hour walking tour, Cindy will talk about the history of the neighborhood while sampling the fig squares at Scialo Bros. Bakery, which celebrates its delicious centennial this year. Other stops include Costantino’s Venda Ravioli, an Italian food emporium known for its pastas and sauces, and Gasbarro’s Wines, in business since 1898.

http://www.savoringrhodeisland.com/savoringfederalhill.htm

CONNECTICUT

Enjoy a Steam Train and Riverboat in the Connecticut River Valley

By the mid-1800s, the lower Connecticut River was lined with more than fifty shipyards. Boats would return from international waters with spices from the West Indies and ivory tusks from Zanzibar. The result of that newly acquired wealth were large Colonial and Federal-style homes that still border the water’s edge on the outskirts of Essex, Connecticut. On a 2 ½-hour steam trainand riverboat tour of the Connecticut River Valley, you’ll pass these classic estates; see the four-story circa-1877 Goodspeed Opera House, which staged the original productions of Annie and Shenandoah; and peer up in awe at the bizarre fieldstone Gillette Castle, built by William Gillette after amassing a fortune playing Sherlock Holmes at the turn of last century. http://essexsteamtrain.com/the-train-boat/

Partake in the Penguin Encounter with a Trainer at the Mystic Aquarium

There’s no better welcoming committee to the Mystic Aquarium than those adorable beluga whales swimming in their outdoor pools just to the right of the entrance. Watch the trainers feed the whales, then walk nearby to see the large stellar sea lions. Afterwards, head inside to view the display of hypnotic jellyfish, including the graceful comb jellies and the long tentacles of the Pacific sea nettles, known for their painful sting. For an additional fee, you can have private time with a penguin in the Penguin Encounter. Pet his slick back feathers, watch him waddle around the small room, and see him dine on herring and squid as you learn about the diminishing habitat of the African penguins, now officially endangered.

http://www.mysticaquarium.org/animals-and-exhibits/encounter-programs

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Take a Naturalist-Led Walk to See the Alpine Wildflowers from the Lakes of the Clouds Hut

One of the historic lodges in the White Mountains, the Lakes of the Clouds hut is ideally perched atop a 5200-foot ridge, rewarding the lucky hiker who ambles here with glorious vistas of the Omni Mount Washington Resort below. Hike the Crawford Path through the Presidential Range on a ridge walk, or hike down 1.4 miles from the Mount Washington summit to reach the hut. After dinner at Lakes of the Clouds, an AMC naturalist will take you on a 45-minute walk to see the alpine wildflowers in bloom, including diapensia, bog laurel, and bunchberry. Then spend the evening peering at the twinkling stars above, which always seem to shine bright above the hut due to the lack of light pollution.

http://www.outdoors.org/lodging/huts/lakes/index.cfm

Learn About the Ghosts and Goblins of Portsmouth

These days, it seems like every town in America has its requisite Ghost Walk, yet it helps to have a town with a lengthy history that warrants such investigation. The seacoast town of Portsmouth, home to one of the nation’s best collections of Georgian and Federal architecture, including many homes still standing from the 1700s, seems ripe with intrigue. On a 90-minute nightly stroll into yesteryear, Roxie Zwicker, author of Haunted Portsmouth, will thrill you with ghoulish tales, like that dastardly Phantom of the Music Hall. She also leads groups through the narrow streets to sites like the “Haunted Corner,” where all four adjacent buildings have supposedly been home to uninvited after-dinner guests.

http://www.newenglandcuriosities.com/historic.htm

Author of more than 1500 travel articles and 9 books, Steve Jermanok is a regular contributor to Yankee Magazine. He co-owns a boutique travel agency in Newton, Massachusetts, called ActiveTravels.com.