Planning 2015 East Coast / New England / Nova Scotia

SarahNell_and_Robert

SarahNell_and_Robert

Novice
We're planning to take a 14-20 day trip later in 2015 up the eastern seaboard from South Carolina to Nova Scotia. We figure we'll haul it up to CT as quickly as possible on 95 to not waste time down here.

We'd like to maximize where we camp and what we see within
• Nova Scotia
• New Brunswick
• Maine
• New Hampshire
• Vermont
• NY State

The initial idea would be to travel along the coast toward Nova Scotia on the way up, but take a different inland route when we leave to cross back to Niagara Falls before driving back to SC.

The biggest thing we could use help with is when to leave. We'd love to catch end of summer, beginning of fall. We'd prefer to avoid (as best as possible) any sudden crazy snow:) Anyone up this way have a good handle on what part of what month this would typically be?

Other than that—we would welcome any and all suggestions on things to do or see. We love beautiful scenic areas, nature based interests, small towns kind of stuff and any state or national parks or historic places.

Thanks in advance!
 
I traveled to Ontario and New England this past fall. It was a 3-1/2 week genealogy research and sightseeing trip with a departure from Kansas on Oct 14. I returned on Nov 6. My outbound route took me through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan (SE tip), Ontario, New York (extreme northern portion), Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The inbound route was through southern Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and home. I was in Ontario for 7 days beginning the week of Oct 20 and Maine for four days. The timing was a little late for the peak color of the turning leaves, but I was fortunate as the weather very good. The total distance turned out to be 5200 miles. The big snow storm that hit Buffalo, New York was a week after I returned home.

This trip was costly with all the hotels and eating out, which in-turn condensed the trip into 3-1/2 weeks. Also, it confirmed my desire to own a teardrop trailer. I ordered mine in the form of a Raindrop 560 at Thanksgiving.

Many of the campgrounds in the north close around the 15th of October, and if you are thinking of taking the ferry from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to Portland, Maine, it shuts down at the same time. I had thought of driving up through Quebec, New Brunswick, across to PEI, and into Nova Scotia, but discovered on the internet that the ferry season was over.

I didn’t go to Niagara, which was one of the compromises to keep the trip time shorter.

I plan on conducting another follow-up round of genealogy research in 2015 for about five weeks, but will depart the 2nd week of September. The crowds at the campgrounds will have thinned out and the colors should be magnificent during the trip.

Mi dos pesos. I hope this helps.
 
SarahNell & Robert

School will start here in Maine the last week of August so the tourist season will be winding down. Generally Columbus Day weekend is peak foliage in the central/coastal area of the state. As Old Prospector pointed out it is also when most of the campgrounds close. There are some that remain open into November and some in southern New England that are open year round.
If it works out for you, we host a teardrop and vintage trailer rally in conjunction with the Tearjerkers. It is always the weekend after Labor Day so it will be Sept 11-13, 2015. Location is MiTeJo Campground in Milton, NH. Fantastic facility and people.
A couple of State Park campgrounds in Maine that I would recommend are Camden Hills State Park in Camden, ME and in Acadia Nat'l Park there is Seawall Campground.
Have fun!
 
Oh man—thank you both! I'll definitely mark the Tearjerker gathering and plan to check out these campsites.

Considering I already overlooked a family reunion I have to be back in town to run 10/10, it will definitely shift our trip so that we can return prior to 10/10 versus after.
 
SarahNell and Robert,

Think about Cape Cod, MA - where we currently live! In September and October, the weather is beautiful, the crowds are gone, camping is still available, lots to do regarding outdoor and nature pursuits. We will be leaving the Cape in March (with some sadness) to pursue teardropping on a fulltime basis...can't wait. But, we will always visit Cape Cod! Happy trails!
 
So we've been utilizing goodsamclub.com's trip planning tool built into their site. It's been helpful to get started but also a tad clunky. Started looking around today for something a little more robust and found Furkot. Not sure if anyone else has used it before, but quickly finding it to be exactly what we need for planning out the multiple days and various legs of this trip.

And Niagara was totally ditched for time purposes as well, but we're growing very excited about taking the Cabot Trail loop around the point of NS!
 
If you're heading up to the Cabot trail consider taking a hard left when you cross the bridge onto cape Breton. That'll put you on the cealigh trail. Nice Gaelic music
Museum on that route as well as the Glenora distillery. They sell 1/2 oz samples so you can try and still drive ...
And for even more fun take the ferry to newfoundland. We spent 15 days there last August and had a great time.

Don't know much about good sams trip planner but if you aren't using the allstays app you're really missing something. It's all we use to find places to stay.
 
NS Provincial parks close on Sept 8th this year check out the parks website www.novascotiaparks.ca The Cabot Trail is great fantastic drive but no real camping on the trail so only a drive and stop for walks.
On your route up try Acadia National park in Maine its fantastic with a great drive up Cadillac mounting for the scenery. Leave the I95 at Bangor and take route 9 and when you have finished at Acadia and want to cross over to Canada you can at Calais/St Stephens.
Or while in this location you may want to visit Campobello Island which is in Canada but only accessible by road from the US on route 1. The tides running between Campobello and the town of Lubec are amazing with lots of seals and eagles fishing. Campobello is also the location of the Summer home of President Roosevelt and is a great free historic place to visit. You can also leave Campobello and enter Canada via ferry across to St Andrews in New Brunswick.
I would also suggest a drive through the Green mountains in Vermont and the White mountains in New Hampshire. Also remember New Hampshire is tax free so great shopping.
While in Nova Scotia Brier island is a great little drive down from Digby for Whale watching and there is also Kejimkujik National park. You have options then to either drive right back around through New Brunswick or take the Digby to Saint Johns Ferry or the Yarmouth to Portland Maine ferry.
If your stuck for a place to rest your head around Halifax we are 40KM up the Eastern shore with a property on a lake so you are welcome to call by especially if you love dogs. The route from Halifax up the Eastern shore is a great drive and you can get to Cape Breton this way with a stop at Sherbrooke for the historic village.
South of Halifax you cant miss Peggys Cove, Mahone Bay, Lunenburg and there is a great Provincial park right on the beach called Rissers which we love. There are also lost of great beaches in Nova Scotia all along the Atlantic coast that we can share with you. PS don't forget the Bay of Fundy highest Tide in the World.
 
Never heard of allstays! Looking at it now for future travel. We've got so much data logged into Furkot right not we'll probably continue for this leg. Totally want to check out a ferry option if we can include it. Thanks for the tip!
 
Barry & Annie said:
NS Provincial parks close on Sept 8th this year check out the parks website www.novascotiaparks.ca The Cabot Trail is great fantastic drive but no real camping on the trail so only a drive and stop for walks.
On your route up try Acadia National park in Maine its fantastic with a great drive up Cadillac mounting for the scenery. Leave the I95 at Bangor and take route 9 and when you have finished at Acadia and want to cross over to Canada you can at Calais/St Stephens.
Or while in this location you may want to visit Campobello Island which is in Canada but only accessible by road from the US on route 1. The tides running between Campobello and the town of Lubec are amazing with lots of seals and eagles fishing. Campobello is also the location of the Summer home of President Roosevelt and is a great free historic place to visit. You can also leave Campobello and enter Canada via ferry across to St Andrews in New Brunswick.
I would also suggest a drive through the Green mountains in Vermont and the White mountains in New Hampshire. Also remember New Hampshire is tax free so great shopping.
While in Nova Scotia Brier island is a great little drive down from Digby for Whale watching and there is also Kejimkujik National park. You have options then to either drive right back around through New Brunswick or take the Digby to Saint Johns Ferry or the Yarmouth to Portland Maine ferry.
If your stuck for a place to rest your head around Halifax we are 40KM up the Eastern shore with a property on a lake so you are welcome to call by especially if you love dogs. The route from Halifax up the Eastern shore is a great drive and you can get to Cape Breton this way with a stop at Sherbrooke for the historic village.
South of Halifax you cant miss Peggys Cove, Mahone Bay, Lunenburg and there is a great Provincial park right on the beach called Rissers which we love. There are also lost of great beaches in Nova Scotia all along the Atlantic coast that we can share with you. PS don't forget the Bay of Fundy highest Tide in the World.
Click to expand...

Thanks Barry and Annie! We planned to take our time looping the trail and have reservations at these campgrounds—any input? Bras D'or Lakes , Hideaway , and lastly MacLeods before we head out.

We are currently planning to use exactly that St. Stephens border crossing but only because I haven't checked into the ferry crossings yet. Ideally, we'll continue a more northern trail on our way out of NS like you suggested through VT and NH before coming back south so if we can make the ferry happen on the way there we will! Thanks for all the extra tips and knowing y'all are somewhat nearby is great!

And yes we are dog people. Our Lab and Boykin Spaniel will be making the haul with us unless you know of any border crossing pitfalls that would prevent that. All I've read is to be sure we have their vaccinations up to date with proper papers on us and it shouldn't be an issue.
 
We stopped at the Macleods Inn for one night while travelling with my parents but not the campground. no experiance of any of the campgrounds but The Hidaway looks nice and secluded and you are close to Meat cove which has a great campground for Tents only right on top of a cliff.

I was going to say if you like golf there is a fantastic Links course near MacLeods but if you have the dogs difficult to play golf.

Make sure you take in Louisbourg fortress a great history lesson on the Englis and French wars. there are still some Acadian settlements in Nova Scotia one is on your route after MacLouds at Cheticamp.
 
Just to update you it seems like summer in Nova Scotia has been cancelled due to lack of sunshine. Its June and we still have the wood stove burning
 
Oh wow! Maybe it's waiting on us to bring it with us. I just read we're expecting a cold-front to come through tomorrow—first time we'll see sub-90s in over two weeks. We just booked our novastar cruise from Portland to Yarmouth! Getting really excited, just under 3 months away.
 
T minus 2 days. Here's our mostly finalized itinerary at 17 days and an estimated 4200 miles...surely we can round that up to 5,000 with a few side trips for our first long haul!

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Whoa now that is quite the EC trip!

I'll be heading back to New England with my pup and my 1 year old CI 550, stopping over at my cousins, then hopefully making the event the weekend of the 9/25, and onward to more friends.

Much good traveling with your Northeast ventures!

Best,
Maureen
 
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