Richard Wiese’s Favorite Finds From Season 2 of Weekends with Yankee

Emmy Award winner Richard Wiese has spent his life traveling the world in search of adventure, but New England is his home—and in the upcoming second season of Weekends with Yankee, which he cohosts, he discovered even more of the region to love. Here, he shares some of his favorite finds from the new season.

Richard Wiese’s Favorite Finds From Season 2 of Weekends with Yankee

Maine’s Chebeague Island

“You get on the ferry, and you feel as though you’ve been transported to a different time, back to another era of vacationing,” Wiese says of this popular Casco Bay destination near Portland. “It’s this small, intimate place. No traffic. Kids riding their bikes across lawns, playing Frisbee, catching fireflies. And then there’s this grand inn with sweeping views of the water. It’s really the Maine island of your imagination.”

New Hampshire’s White Mountains

In visiting the Appalachian Mountain Club huts and hiking with the staffers who run them, Wiese, whose previous explorations took him to Everest and Kilimanjaro, returned to the mountains of his childhood. “It was my training school, my outdoor school,” he says. “You meet so many interesting people there. Hikers doing the Appalachian Trail, folks up there just for the day—all these people from different backgrounds drawn to this very special place.”

Great White Sharks Off Cape Cod

Wiese calls this segment, in which he looked for great whites o the coast of Chatham, Massachusetts, with Greg Skomal of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, his biggest “eye-opener” of the season. “We have this idea of these sharks as these maniacal creatures, but they are truly magni cent,” he says. “And to be out there with Dr. Skomal, who is such an expert on them and has so many good stories to share about his work, made it an incredible trip.”

Mountain Biking on Vermont’s Kingdom Trails

“I was blown away at the opportunity to ride without the traffic,” says Wiese, an avid road cyclist who rides frequently around his hometown of Westport, Connecticut. “Just to be out in the open, along dirt roads and beautifully maintained trails, through fields and meadows, beside stone walls—it was the full Vermont experience.”

Minor League Baseball in Connecticut

At the home of the Connecticut Tigers, a Single-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, Weise discovered a slice of Americana. “I felt as if I’d walked onto the set of Bull Durham,” he says. “These games become popular family outings. It’s affordable and kid-friendly, and you get this chance to see some players who one day may become big-league players. You can’t beat it.”