If you’d like to reach out to me to feature one of my photos, or quote an article from my blog in your publication or social media, I’d absolutely love to hear from you. Please send a message to hello[at]newenglandwanderlust[dot]com. Use of any excerpts or photos from this website requires pre-authorization, and a direct do-follow link back to New England Wanderlust.
I do not accept any paid guest posts, freelance writers, or paid link placement on this website. These requests will be ignored.
Please note that New England Wanderlust does not offer planning and itinerary services. Read below for more information on reaching out with a quick question, though!
Work With Me
New England Wanderlust is available for collaborations and partnerships with hotels, restaurants, tourism boards, and any business related to New England or New York. Please e-mail me at hello[at]newenglandwanderlust[dot]com for more information on how I can help you with your PR goals.
FAQ
Q: I’m planning a trip to New England, can you help me with my itinerary?
A: As much as I would love to help you with your itinerary, this isn’t a service I’m able to offer at this time. Itinerary planning requires a lot of time to make sure it’s absolutely perfect and tailored to your preferences, so it would become a full-time endeavor all on its own, and wouldn’t leave me any time to work on this website.
Since this is something that’s so highly requested, I’m hoping to offer giveaways in the future for my e-mail subscribers for customized itinerary planning. If that’s of interest to you, I encourage you to sign up for my e-mail newsletter community to be the first to hear about this if I’m able to offer it.
In the meantime, if you have a specific question that you can’t find an answer to on my website, I welcome you to reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help you, or I may direct you to a post on my website. I love to answer e-mails with quick questions you may be stuck on during the planning process!
Please allow a few days for me to respond to your e-mail. Sometimes I’ll get back to you freakishly fast, and sometimes I’m traveling and don’t check my e-mail as often 🙂
Q: You do accept guest posts?
A: I accept guest post pitches on a case-by-case basis. If you think you have a great idea for a guest post about the New England or New York region, I’d love for you to send me an e-mail using the address above.
To be considered, your post will need to be completely original, and not published elsewhere currently or in the future, offer expert insight and tips into your chosen topic (you must have visited the destination and know it well), and include at least 5 original, high-quality, hi-res photos. If I think your pitch will benefit my readers, I will reply to your e-mail, and we’ll get started.
Q: I’m a photographer and would love to have my photos featured on your website – what should I do?
A: If you’ve got an awesome photo from the New England region that’s a natural inclusion in one of my posts, I would love to feature it – I’ll even give you a do-follow link to your website in the photo caption, along with photo credit, of course. I love to support local artists when I can, so don’t be shy.
Just reach out to me at the e-mail address listed above, and let’s chat!
Q: I see New York content on your site. You do realize that New York isn’t part of New England, right?
A: Haha! Yes, I do know that New York isn’t part of New England 🙂 But since I was born and raised in Upstate New York, and because that’s where I currently live, I have so much information and tons of tips to share about this amazing state, too. I decided to include it as part of this website, after a lot of back on forth on whether or not it belonged. New York is very close to the New England states (one of the reasons I love where I live!), so it seemed like a natural inclusion.
I also came to find that many people incorporated New York into their trips to New England, so my hope is that this website will be a one-stop shop for you as you plan your own itinerary.
Q: Where do I even begin planning my New England trip?
A: Most e-mails I get are from people planning a New England trip, and not even sure where to begin. The advice I always offer is to decide what kind of areas you want to visit, as New England can be broken down into: cities (Boston, Portland, etc.), countryside, mountains, and coastal.
I usually recommend prioritizing which type of region is your highest priority, then your second highest, and so on. Chances are, you may not be able to see each type of region during your visit, unless you’re here for a week or longer.
I also suggest you think about the time of year you’re visiting as New England is very seasonal, and that alone can often dictate your entire itinerary.
From there, you can begin to build our your perfect trip!
For those traveling from a distance, I recommend using Boston as your starting and end point, as the city is incredible and packed with iconic things to do. It’s also easy to get to most New England destinations from Boston, and you’re likely to find good deals on flights to/from Boston Logan Airport.
If you’re looking to see a lot of the coast, Massachusetts and Maine are my favorite places for that, with Rhode Island being a close runner up.
Vermont, Acadia National Park, Massachusetts, and the White Mountains in New Hampshire are my favorites for fall trips to see the foliage, with Vermont and New Hampshire being absolute must-see’s in the fall.
Connecticut is wonderful year-round, and tends to be the most expensive state to visit when it comes to accommodations, and is out of the way for most people’s plans. It’s worth visiting, but for first-timer’s unsure if it fits into their itinerary, I typically err on the side of skipping it, versus making a lot of effort to get there. But this depends person to person.
This is the advice I offer to anyone looking to get started with planning.
Q: When is the best time to visit New England?
A: I’m the biggest advocate for embracing all four seasons, and that’s why I love where I live! I honestly think all the seasons are incredible to visit in New England 🙂
However, if you’re traveling from a distance for a bucket list trip in this region, here are a few thoughts I have to help you decide:
- What are you looking for out of your trip, and are you willing to visit during peak time? For example, if you’re looking for an epic coastal road trip and want to see what New England is like in the summer, then July & August is the best time for you to visit. This would also apply if you want to visit Cape Cod and have a true summer experience (or see the famous hydrangeas).
- Want to see the coast but would prefer fewer crowds, but also don’t mind if a few businesses are closed? Then I love suggesting May or October. June and September are also lovely, but gaining popularity and are more crowded now (but less crowded than July & August).
- Fall foliage is worth the crowds (see below!).
- December is truly magical because of the holiday celebrations. You won’t find a more cozy corner of the world during the month of December.
- January, February and March are amazing for winter and ski trips.
- The only time I hesitate recommending people come is early spring. I have grown to love it as much as the other seasons, but March still very much feels like winter, and April can still be cold and snowy, or very, very muddy. It also depends on what region you visit, as more southern places like CT and RI will have slightly nicer and warmer weather by this point, but it could still be snowing in the mountains. Spring is really unpredictable! But generally, mid to late May and early June are great times to visit in the spring season.
Q: When is the best time to visit New England to see the fall foliage?
A: Peak fall foliage can happen at different times each year, and varies based on weather patterns and temperature fluctuations. It also peaks in the northern regions earlier, and then makes its way down from there.
I typically suggest end of September/the very beginning of October for peak foliage in the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Northern Kingdom of Vermont. For central Vermont (where most people will visit) and Acadia National Park in Maine, the beginning of October is a really safe bet (around Indigenous Peoples’ Weekend).
Connecticut will peak later, typically around mid to late October. If you’re looking to visit Salem, MA for foliage and the Halloween festivities, mid-late October is a good time to visit.
These are all suggestions based on past data, though. One thing I can say is that I’ve been to coastal Massachusetts at the end of October, and one year, it was peak foliage, and the next time I went on the same weekend a year or two later, all the leaves had already fallen. So when in doubt, so slightly early!
In a nutshell, early to mid-October is a very safe bet for most of the premier fall foliage destinations in New England.
Q: I want to visit New England in the fall but I only have a few days. Where do you suggest I go?
A: Vermont, and base yourself in Stowe or Woodstock. These two towns offer lots to do, but are only 1.5 hours from one another, are quintessential New England towns, and are accessible to some short road trips around the countryside to scope out some amazing foliage views. You’ll be able to pack in the most for your time, and also see the best New England has to offer for fall foliage at pretty much every turn.
You could also do the White Mountains in New Hampshire, but I find that Vermont has more New England charm, and is best for first-timers on a tight schedule.
Q: Is New England hard to visit in the winter? I want a magical winter getaway!
A: As with any destination that gets snow, you’ll always want to factor that into your vacation. But, New England is amazing in the winter, and it’s one of my favorite times of the year in this region.
If you ski, there are lots of resorts and ski destinations to choose from. And if you don’t ski, you’ll fall in love with all the charming towns that turn into snow globes in the winter.
For this kind of trip, I recommend renting a car with 4W-Drive, or snow tires, and also get trip insurance in case your flights are delayed or cancelled due to inclement weather. I also like to remind people that while we do get a lot of snow, it doesn’t snow 24/7, and it’s generally still easy to take road trips and get around (unless we get a blizzard!). I’ve taken many road trips through New England in the winter, and very rarely have I run into a problem where the roads weren’t suitable for driving.
Q: Is there an expensive and/or cheap time to visit New England?
A: Generally speaking, the coastal destinations will be most expensive late June through early September, with May/June and September/early October being shoulder season. They’ll be the cheapest during their off-season, which is November-March/April.
Mountain regions are typically the most expensive in the fall and winter for foliage and ski seasons. Usually, hotel prices will drop a bit once peak foliage is over, and then go back up just before the holiday season when snowfall begins. In the spring/summer, you can often find good deals at hotels in the mountain regions.
Bigger cities like Boston and Portland are kind of all over the place when it comes to pricing, but generally, I find that they’re most expensive in the summer and fall, and offer their lowest prices in the winter.
Early spring in all New England states tends to be one of the least expensive times to travel because we’re in a season transition. April and early May offers some nice, inexpensive rates while the last of the snow goes away, and the warmer weather starts to make its first appearances. This is also known as mud season, as everything could still be a bit wet and muddy from all the melting snow. But this is a nice time to visit if you’re on a budget and don’t mind unpredictable weather!
Q: Why do you live in New York, and not one of the New England states?
A: Both my husband and I are from Upstate New York, and when we decided to move back east after five years in Chicago, we landed in this area to be close to family as we all got older. It’s our goal to one day live in Massachusetts near the coast, but for now, we love our little farmhouse in New York’s countryside.
It’s still been like a dream to spend a lot of our weekends and vacations exploring New England.
Q: Are you on social media?
A: Kind of. I’m on Instagram, but that’s really it. Generally, I find social media to be overwhelming even though I’m a Millennial 😂 I’ve never signed up for Twitter or Tik Tok! I don’t post a ton on Instagram because I like to put all my efforts into this website, but I do post stories from our trips (New England and beyond), and try to share a few recaps, photos, and updates on our farmhouse renovation there.
You’re welcome to join me on Instagram by clicking here.
Q: How do you get pictures of yourself when traveling?
A: If I’m traveling with my husband, we take pictures of each other, or we set-up a tripod with an interval timer, which is a function that some cameras have that snap a photo every second until you tell it to stop. The tripod/interval timer method is also how I get pictures of myself when I’m traveling alone.
I sometimes book photography sessions with a professional photographer if I think it will be difficult to set-up a camera on a tripod in a certain destination (like busy cities, or windy conditions, for example). I love finding photographers on sites like Flytographer, AirBnB Experiences, and Instagram, and recommend you consider a professional session to document your time during a trip! I’m a big advocate of not needing a special occasion to document a happy or empowering time in your life.
But I usually take most of my photos myself because I enjoy the creative process.