The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Why you’ve been doing New England all wrong
It may be celebrated for its autumn colours, but this much-loved corner of America is just as spectacular in spring, says Marcel Theroux. Plus: how to plan your perfect trip
If I could visit New England at only one time of year, it would be spring. Summer and autumn get all the attention, but spring has its own distinctive flavour, one sweetened by cool breezes, sea air and wildflowers. Everything is fresher and brighter after the ordeal of winter – and it doesn’t hurt that visiting at this time of year is also less frenetic and much more affordable. OK, sea swimming is probably out and you won’t be working on your tan, but aside from that, virtually everything is better in spring.
Like spring in the UK, New England spring is unpredictable and can encompass a huge range of conditions. I’ve tobogganed in deep snow in Massachusetts in March, while the lifts at Maine’s Sugarloaf Mountain can still be taking skiers up to the slopes in May. This is a very cold part of the world, a place of winter tyres, snowploughs and ice-fishing. Even further south in Connecticut, where I spent two years at university, December to March is a grey and chilly ordeal, followed by a muddy phase just after the first thaw, before the ice finally departs.
But when spring truly arrives, it does so with a palpable snap. In Walden, his 1854 memoir of life in the New England outdoors, Henry David Thoreau said it felt almost instantaneous, the change “from dark and sluggish hours to bright and elastic ones is a memorable crisis which all things proclaim”.
As the lakes of the region unfreeze and the snow departs, the trees first have a skeletal look, then the palette of tawny colours gives way to new leaves, flowers and energising days of bright sunlight and high skies – perfect for day trips, walks, road trips and
camping. The change is a call to adventure, encouraging you out of your winter hibernation to dispel the accumulated fug of lockdowns and revel in the feeling of new life and sap rising. Speaking of rising sap, this is, of course, maple syrup season. Most of the world’s maple syrup is produced in Quebec and New England, from trees that are tapped at the beginning of the spring thaw, the liquid then concentrated by boiling it down into sticky brown goo. The activity peaks towards the end of April with celebrations and festivals at towns and rustic sugar shacks.
With the maple harvest over, spring begins in earnest. The cool, insect-free days and nights are the perfect time to head to the woods on foot or by bicycle. You might have to pick your trails to avoid mud, but I’ve spent more than one spring camping with my brother in Shawme Crowell State Forest, sleeping in a two-person tent and warming up baked beans on foul-smelling cans of solid fuel. Even if that were still possible (and a quick check tells me the pitches are not available until June), I would probably choose more luxury nowadays. Today, there’s a huge range of glamping sites across the six states of New England (New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut) – and for the more intrepid, or more frugal, there’s often free camping in state parks.
But it’s not all about nature: spring is also the best moment for a New England city break. Freezing cold in winter, humid, hot and overcrowded in summer, the cities of New England are at their most welcoming between now and Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, which marks the unofficial beginning of summer. These are the best months to visit their world-class museums and fine restaurants, enjoy music and opera or take in a baseball game. Locals, less pressed by the volume of visitors, have more time to give you their attention.
You might find yourself alone on a ferry to Nantucket – unthinkable in summer, when even billionaires are jostling for space – or browsing in an antique shop. Seafood shacks are just opening up, and there’s something about a restaurant that stays open year-round that gives an assurance of quality. The lobster boats are less busy, but they are still going out, so lobster rolls are certainly on the menu.
I have travelled so much in New England, but there’s still so much I’d like to see. As summer sets in, the heat and humidity can be enervating. In spring, without the seductive indolence of the beach, there’s a chance to tick some things off my bucket list: the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island; Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, Connecticut; HP Lovecraft’s Providence. I would still like to walk the Appalachian Trail through Maine – and see the Red Sox playing at Fenway Park.
But for me, the greatest charm of New England lies in its small towns, with their mill ponds and greens and grist mills, and their understated but distinctive architectural vernacular: the shingles, gambrel roofs and gingerbread woodwork. These are never more beautiful than on bright spring days. What could be finer than a long meandering drive through the back roads as the region is shaking off winter, with the prospect of bed and breakfast in a lovingly cared for colonial town and many more days of spring ahead?