Need suggestions for NY area trip the week between Christmas and New Year's Day

[RobinCanCook]

My husband has been working as an insurance claims adjustor for the Hurricane Sandy damage for the last month. I am flying to NYC (JFK) on Christmas Day and got a great price on a fancy hotel in Manhattan for 12/25-12/26. He is worn out from the long, stressful days and all the traffic (we live in a rural area of Texas with only 15,000 population in the entire county.)
While there are many interesting things to do in the city, I think we need to get out and see more of the scenery and historical sites away from the extremely busy areas.
We have a vehicle and can take off any direction as long as I get back to JFK on 1/1/2013.
Please help me with suggestions of routes, places to stay (not too expensive) and great local places to eat. I do have a cousin in Springfield, MA and would like to include that town along the way.
And our 34th wedding anniversary is New Year's Eve and would love a place to stay and eat out (not Times Square or necessarily even in NYC.)
Thanks in advance.
Robin

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

As I read your plans, you have from the day after Christmas to New Year's Eve for your decompression RoadTrip. That is plenty of time to see a good bit of New England, but for your purposes, something a bit more sedate than trying to everything might be in order. I'm going to assume that you've already seen enough coastline to last you for a while. So... for both scenery and history (and to include Springfield MA) I think you'd be hard pressed to beat a trip up the Hudson and down the Connecticut Rivers (or vice versa).

Along the Hudson, get off I-87 and onto the Taconic Parkway and/or NY-22 as soon as you're comfortable with these 'surface roads'. Some historic towns to poke into and take relaxing walks through would include West Point (and the USMA), Lake George, and Saratoga Springs. Other historic sites would be Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point. You might even want to consider a side trip through the Adirondacks with a stop at the Olympic town of Lake Placid. Your northern terminus of this leg is NY-373 east of Keesville to catch a very relaxing ferry ride over to Burlington VT. Burlington is itself a great little town, home to the University of Vermont and a lovely downtown pedestrian mall - Church Street.

To make the connection to the Connecticut River, you'll have to cross the Green Mountains. The easy way to do this is by using I-89, but there are side trips available such as Stowe where the von Trapp family lodge, and Maria's and the Baron's graves are: Hope Cemetery in Barre with some of the most ornate and whimsical monuments you'll ever see; and Brookfield with its (semi-)floating bridge; and Quechee Gorge just west of White River Junction.

Along the Connecticut River, use US-5 on the Vermont side and NH-11/NH-12/NH-12A on the New Hampshire side and take the opportunity to cross the river on a couple of the covered bridges still in use. There is also the restored Fort No. 4 in Charlestown NH. In West Hartford CT, Mark Twain's and Harriet Beecher Stowe's homes are literally next door to each other. From there it's just a short jaunt back to NYC. Or, of course, you can do the trip the other way, counterclockwise.

Actually, you could drive that entire route in as little as a day and a half if you just drove it at a comfortable pace. So with six days or so you'll have plenty of time to relax, visit with your cousin, enjoy the scenery, and poke about quite a few historic sites. If that sounds enticing, I can probably add a few more suggestions. But if something like Newport/Cape Cod/Boston/Salem sounds more like what you'd like, that's another possibility - and you could include Springfield in such a trip as well.

AZBuck

[RobinCanCook]

Thanks for the great suggestions. I am going to look over your suggestions and use it as I find places to stay.

[RobinCanCook]

I am wondering if anyone has a suggestion of a place to stay on New Year's Eve maybe in Connecticut so I can have an easy drive to my afternoon flight from JFK. It is our anniversary and was more interested in a nice place to eat and enjoy the evening even if we stay in a regular hotel as opposed to a B&B.