Travel The East

On America’s birthday weekend, we made the trip up from Boston to celebrate in the great state of Vermont.  It was around a two and half hour drive till we reached White River Junction.  We stayed at  Hotel Coolidge .  This not your typical cookie-cutter hotel chain.  However, if you like historic charm and uniqueness, we suggest you book a room here.  The price is very affordable, the location is great, rooms were very well-kept and the staff was excellent.  The coolest part about this hotel was that  President Calvin Coolidge and his father were frequent guests here.  You can check out more interesting details about the hotel history directly on their  site . Quechee Gorge- Vermont We spent most of our time in Quechee. There was a great little village with a number of shops. They had free cheese samplings at the Cabot store. This is every cheese-lover's dream come true. The amount of different cheeses they offered was...

We enjoyed this trail hike on a weekend trip to outer Cape Cod, which in our opinion is one of the nicest places to visit in the United States during the summer months. While we went to a number of beautiful outdoor places throughout the weekend, the Great Island Trail was one of the most memorable. Great Island Trail Marsh View What started off as your run of the mill hike along a marsh by the water quickly felt like we were on assignment for the National Geographic Channel. The place was absolutely loaded with Sand Fiddler Crabs. These crabs(the males) are an inch or two in length and feature one giant claw that is over half the size of their body. They live in small holes in the marsh sand and were lined up on the trail by the thousands. They were quite the spectacle to observe, and we found ourselves trying to capture one picture after another of this giant clawed army. The Sand Fiddler Crab with its giant claw. If it loses this claw, its small claw grows to becom...

One of our very first hikes together was at Breakheart Reservation in Saugus, a short ride out of Boston.  It was a perfectly easy and beautiful trail, making it the ideal starting point for a novice hiker.  But don't get me wrong though, even more advanced hikers will love it here. We expected to spend a half day at Breakheart, arriving there between 9:30- 10:00 am.  When we went at the time, there was no fee for parking which is always a plus.  The loop trail was nicely paved out for hikers and altogether the hike was around 4 miles long.   In all honesty, when we got here we did not know what to expect.  Needless to say, we did not research Breakheart much beforehand.  We were a bit over-prepared...  Let me go into to more detail. With intention of this being a long hike, had packaged some frozen hot dogs in our backpack for lunch, along with matches to make a fire and cook them.  Once we arrived at one of the first small...

Perfect beach day To sum up this post into 4 words: Key West is awesome .  If you’ve been, you probably know this already. If you haven’t,  we’d highly recommend putting it on your short list of places to travel. Matt & Kristy Key West offers a small airport to fly directly into, but you can also fly into Miami or Ft. Lauderdale and make the 3-4 hour drive with a rented vehicle to Key West, which is what we did. We’ll go into this road trip in more detail in a future post, but this is one of the few times we can say we wished the drive was longer! If it’s in your travel budget, rent a convertible. It’s only $20-$30 more per day than a small car and you won’t regret it. After an adventure filled road trip we finally made it to the southern most point of the continental US and decided we would look for a great beach to enjoy the day.  Our research pointed us to Ft. Zachary Taylor Beach , which is located on the south west perimeter of Key West. The...

It’s about time we made a trip to the northern most part of the East Coast.  So off we were, on our way to the lobster state.  Maine has a number of great beaches along its coast, but we chose Old Orchard , a beach town welcoming hundreds of visitors all summer long. If you forget your beach attire, no need to worry.  There are tons of local beach shops along the boardwalk.  We stopped in a few to shop around before hitting the beach.  Shop owners were very friendly talking to us about everything from souvenirs to their trip to Saco last weekend.  Needless to say, we ended up buying a few souvenirs before we left.  When we stepped on the sand, the beach conditions were perfect.  Not a cloud in the sky, 80 degrees, and people having a good time.  The water temperature was a little colder than we were used to, but that didn’t stop us from hopping in.  The beach was very clean and the sand is not too rocky on your feet.  One o...

Matt & Kristy atop the Sunset Hill summit. Not bad for an auto capture! This trail hike is situated next to the popular ski mountain, Mt. Sunapee.  It was an easy going, mellow hike, that we stumbled upon completely unplanned. It was a summer day and we were heading back to Boston from VT.  We had our mind set on spending the afternoon at a scenic lake, but the wind was blowing 15-20 mph and it was only around 70 degrees out, so that plan was shot.  After making a lap around Sunapee Lake(which is huge), we saw on Google Maps that the lake bordered a piece of land called John Hay National Wildlife Refuge .  We figured there would be some nice trials by the lake but ended up with more than we bargained for. While the Sunset Hill trail is no mountain hike, it still takes about an hour to get to the top and offers great panoramic views of the lake. We saw a few families and some people with their dogs, as this was a very family friendly hike. It definitely w...

The Poconos are one of the East Coast's premier vacation hot spots, known for its mountainous regions making it ideal for outdoor sports and recreation. However a little outside of the mountain range is a smaller, lesser known wildlife reservation to the out-of-stater called Bushkill Falls . There is an entrance fee of $12.50 per adult and $7 for children, which does include parking. However I would not let that deter you. The views you will experience on your hike make it a worthwhile investment. When we arrived at Bushkill Falls it was around 9am on a Saturday. At our arrival, there were already a few groups of visitors on the trail. Keep in mind, Summer is their peak season. It was a very family-oriented destination. The trails were man-made, making it a very easy hike for all ages. So, if you are looking for a challenge I would not suggest hiking Bushkill Falls. However if you want a beautiful trail with eight cascading waterfalls, this is the place to go! ...

Living within the animated streets of Boston, very rarely do we find ourselves bored. However we do search hard to find those few outdoorsy activities that often go unnoticed by the city dwellers.  Great view of the Boston Skyline A few Saturday’s ago, in the heat of the summer sun we were looking for something fun to do in city.  We came across Paddle Boston . Paddle Boston offers kayak, canoes and paddle board rentals on the Charles River.  It's a great day on the water with scenic views, and the best part is you're right in the heart of the city! There was a great range of open water to kayak while taking in views of the Boston skyline. If you're seeking a more leisurely trip, we'd also recommend taking the kayak through the canal by Storrow Dr., which allows you to kayak right through the middle of the park.  The Charles tends to be very calm, making this a low endurance and relaxing activity suitable for anyone...

We stumbled upon this unbeknownst hidden gem looking for a good beach in Chatham. Having never been to Chatham before we did some research online, looked at some pictures/reviews, and Lighthouse Beach emerged as the number 1 prospect. However, the reviews did caution about it being difficult to park. Difficult was an understatement, as there were only 15 minute park and sight-see spots available to the public. To make matters worse, some clouds and fog had rolled in, leaving us with an overcast beachless beach day. While the thought of wasting a precious Saturday started looming over us faster than the clouds, we decided to continue driving further down the peninsula towards Morris Island as we saw there was National Wildlife Refuge and bird sanctuary there. If we weren't going to get out on the beach at least see some cool birds, right? Parking is available at the refuge headquarters on Morris Island As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, the skies began to ...