Visiting New england & New York

acebanditcat

Hi I wonder if anyone could help with my queries?

My boyfriend and I are flying to Boston on Thursday 16th of September and returning on Saturday 26th September. We currently have only one hotel booked in Lexington for the first two nights and the last night.
As well as travelling around New England we would like to visit New York
for two days. We are planning on picking up a car from Logan Airport when we land, so my queries are:

Which is the best days of the week to visit New York? (we dont want to see a show or anything)

Is it best to drive into New York and find a hotel there? And if so what do we do with the car?

Or should we find a hotel outside New York and travel in? Are the Park and rides? or is it best to leave the car at a railway station and catch a train in.

As we'd also like to visit Cape cod when is it best to visit there? the weekend of a week day?

This is our first holiday to America and I cant wait!! I've still got to sort out car hire (dont know what type of car!) and have still to find places to stay and visit around New England. So I am trawling through the forums finding useful information.

Any help and suggestions would be gratefully recieved x

Pssst

You could get the Acela express which runs between Boston and NYC and is a very good service (train). Saves messing around driving/parking in NYC

M4RKM

no need to cross post!!! i've just spent time replying to this thread here, and then to see you've copied and pasted your question in the NYC thread...

fifeken

markymoo wrote: »

no need to cross post!!! i've just spent time replying to this thread here, and then to see you've copied and pasted your question in the NYC thread...

...and the Flights, Currency and Car Hire one as well.

acebanditcat

Obviouslyi need i should have posted my APOLOGY on all the to you all on all sites so here its is:
Thanks for your response Mark its very helpful. We thought maybe we could drive to somewhere just outside New York and book a hotel there then travel in by train. But I'm sitting here at the moment trying to find suitable places.

A apologise for putting my question into the main travel forum as well as this (I also put it in the flights,car & currency forum in error and I dont know how to remove it) The only reason I put that one in the main forum was because I was asking about New England as well and thought I'd get told off in the New York forum. Once again I apologise for offending you and everyone else

M4RKM

i see the logic...

the bit about car hire, belongs in the car hire forum
the bit about new york, belongs in the new york thread
the bit about new england, belongs in here..

however, i think that the NYC thread (umm), is always the best place to post anything that has a little snippit about NYC in it...

M

Obsessed with NYC

dondo

We went to Boston, Cape Cod & NYC on our honeymoon a few years ago. In regards to Cape Cod- we were there in April so it was relatively quiet- which was good on the traffic front but meant that some things were closed.

Also I would say go whale watching if you can- you can definitely do that from Boston and from cape Cod- cape Cod is better as nearer the whales so more whale watching time

Cape Cod is lovely- our favourite towns were Provincetown, Sandwich and Falmouth

Also in Eastham there';s an information centre that tells you about all the walks that you can do around the cape- well worth picking up a leaflet as there are some amazing walks

We got a bus from Boston to Bourne in Cape Cod where we picked up a hire car and then returned the car there and got bus to NYC

golly99

Dondo-Funnily enough that's the trip I'm looking into for our honeymoon, Boston, Cape Cod and NYC! Looking for 3-4 nights Boston/Cape Cod and hopefully 7 nights in NYC, was thinking about going to Boston/Cape Cod first to relax a bit after the wedding before we go to New York - is this what you did dondo?

Is it worth hiring a car for travelling around Boston/Cape Cod? Don't mind driving but prefer to get buses around and relax if possible!

How long do you need to see Boston/Cape Cod is 3/4 nights realistic?

M4RKM

Personally, for a honeymoon i'd do longer relaxing in luxury, (at a cheaper price) than a week in NYC..

NYC is very tiring, and I always come back more tired than when i went, but i love the place!

dondo

golly99 wrote: »

Dondo-Funnily enough that's the trip I'm looking into for our honeymoon, Boston, Cape Cod and NYC! Looking for 3-4 nights Boston/Cape Cod and hopefully 7 nights in NYC, was thinking about going to Boston/Cape Cod first to relax a bit after the wedding before we go to New York - is this what you did dondo?

Is it worth hiring a car for travelling around Boston/Cape Cod? Don't mind driving but prefer to get buses around and relax if possible!

How long do you need to see Boston/Cape Cod is 3/4 nights realistic?

Golly

We did 3 nights in Boston and as it was our honeymoon splashed out on somewhere nice and stayed here http://www.charlesstreetinn.com/ which was excellent. We didn't bother with hiring a car in Boston as the public transport there is excellent. We then rented a cottage for a week in Cape Cod for a week- staying in Eastham which was a really handy location. As I said previously we picked up a hire car in Cape Cod (the hire company were kind enough to pick us up from where the bus dropped us off). Given that it was off season the week could of easily been cut to 5 days but we still found plenty to keep us occupied for the week- we did a day trip to Martha's Vineyard too

If you were going to do Boston and the Cape in that short period of time then probably best to get the ferry from Boston to Provincetown and focus your time around there (which is no bad thing as Provincetown is lovely)

We then got bus to NYC where we had 3 nights before coming home

If you need any more info/tips then just drop us a PM

JimArnold

You need to keep your plans flexible if you want to see the best tree colours and you may be a bit early. The Kancamagus Highway is spectacular

Whale watching - incredible - either from cape cod or from Plymouth (its the same whale grounds I'd recommended Barbaras Bed and Breakfast in Plymouth and Plymouth is a shorter drive from Boston

Don't skimp on car hire if you will be doing a lot of miles you need comfort + space - even if you drive a Fiesta over here go for something a little bigger; fuel is still cheap over there

Don't forget to look for concerts - there are several very good venues and it may be a chance to see someone that rarely comes to the UK

Avoid driving in NYC - get a hotel in New Jersey or on Long Island and get the train/bus into the city

You don't mention your age some companies charge under 25s a large excess