Maine’s coast encapsulates many of New England’s greatest charms, such as Bass Harbor Head Light Station
In many of the stories about the origin of the United States, one place recurs: New England, the northeastern region comprising the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. This land was, of course, inhabited long before the Europeans arrived and claimed it as their own. Experts estimate there were between 70,000 and 100,000 Native Americans living here at the beginning of the 17th century, when the first English settlers arrived in modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts. The events that took place in the centuries that followed, from the founding of English colonies to the American War of Independence, would forever change the course of history.
New England’s red-brick cities and heritage sites are welcoming harbours for history- and culture-lovers — but the region offers much more. There are the White Mountains, a rugged sub-range of the Appalachians; foggy islands and Atlantic capes that make for coastal road trips to rival anywhere in North America; and everything in between. Much of it is empty and wild, the atmosphere only enhanced by thriving populations of whale, black bear and bobcat. The hardest part about visiting might be deciding what to miss out, with the combined states almost the same size as Great Britain.
No matter where you go, you’ll find all roads lead to Boston, the capital of Massachusetts and, arguably, of the wider region. Even though it’s been 250 years since British tea chests were flung into its harbour — a key act of rebellion in the lead-up to American independence — visiting its Federal-style row houses still feels like stepping into a history book. Head to nearby Cape Cod and Nantucket for walks on long stretches of beach and to try Atlantic catches — no itinerary is complete without stops at oyster houses and lobster shacks.
Tack on more time for Rhode Island and Connecticut, the lesser-visited coastal states to Massachusetts’s south, to learn about different chapters in the region’s history, including its Indigenous cultures and Gilded Age splendour of the late 19th century. To the north, New England stretches out its limbs. Vermont and New Hampshire are a free-flowing wilderness of green hills, maple farms and country stores. They’re especially scenic in autumn — New England is the world’s unofficial leaf-peeping capital — and offer great adventures in winter, when they transform into skiing resorts. Slipping further north, Maine’s whole tourism pitch is modelled on getting outdoors. It’s a state for moose safaris,