Help me with a "New England" getaway

My wife and I want to take a weekend trip to the New England area.

Our only requirements are:

- On the ocean

- Great food

- Scenic

- Friendly

Cost isn't a concern but if you know of any deals, I certainly wont turn my nose up.

It's not the fanciest but I'm partial to Lafayette’s Oceanfront Resort in Well's Beach Maine.  It's priced nicely, right on the beach and I've always been treated well there.  Some of their rooms are so close to the water that you can get salt spray on your face at high tide.

I don't have a specific recommendation but there are tons of more upscale places on the coast from Wells to Kennebunkport. 

When I visit that area I have a personal rule about only eating at restaurants with ocean views and there are a ton of options with really good food.

Portland, ME as your central hub, and a few 30-45min excursions from there would be my bet.  Portland has an excellent foodie scene, great live music and events, the islands are all worth visiting/exploring by means of cheap water taxis, and it's pretty central to Freeport/Midcoast (North- shopping and idyllic coastline) and Saco/Wells (South-  Best beaches and seafood shacks).   

Honorable mentions would also be- 

- Acadia NP/Bar Harbor- If you're more into nature/hiking/off the beaten path

- Portsmouth NH- Like Portland, just smaller, quieter, and more intimate. 

I'm local to all but Acadia.  Look me up if you venture out this way, I'd love to show you around! 

Edit-  Just saw 'weekend' and not 'week'.  My answer is still the same, just would maybe stay in Saco/Old Orchard Beach and venture into portland for the food/atmosphere/etc... 

I'm currently in Boston on a job and we went to Olgunquit, ME for a day and it was really cute.  Near Portland, so golfduke's recommendation echoes what I have heard and seen.

I used to live in Amesbury, Mass., near the coast. I'd take a drive along the coast from north of Boston to Portland. There are plenty of quaint New England towns along the way and beaches. I'm personally fond of the ones in New Hampshire. They're small, but they have a nice vibe to them. Plenty of great seafood along the way, too, of course.

Some towns to consider with things to do in them:
- Salem, Mass.
- Gloucester, Mass.
- Newburyport, Mass.
- Portsmouth, N.H. (my personal fav)
- Portland, Maine

If you like shopping, take advantage of the tax-free sales in N.H. It's tax-free on everything.

If it's just a weekend, Ogunquit, ME is my recommendation - we go up there at least twice a year. I cannot recommend the Gorges Grant Hotel highly enough. It's an easy walk to town and the beach, and not far from the Marginal Way cliff walk to Perkins Cove. More than enough restaurants for a weekend, but it's about 45 minutes from Portland if you want more variety.

I will note one very small word of caution-  Lots of stuff, in ogunquit particularly, is running on wierd hours due to labor shortages in the tourist-heavy towns.  This is not to detract you from going there, because it's beautiful and you'll love it, but just requires a bit more careful planning.  Winging it could result in missed opportunities is all. 

IMHO, you really can't go wrong with the stretch from Portsmouth, NH all the way up to Freeport/Bath, ME.  They all offer excellent hospitality, seafood, and great coastlines.  It's really all in what you prefer from there-  great beaches, picturesque coastlines, amenities/fine dining, touristy or quieter, etc... 

When I say weekend I mean Thursday evening through Monday afternoon. 

Through Google I had Portland as an option. Looks like, flying into Boston then renting a car to drive up to Portland would be an easy plan. 

Thank you for the recommendations!

On your way up the coast I suggest a stop at this place on the NH/MA coast

https://www.markeyslobsterpound.com 

All excellent recommendations. I live in the Portsmouth area and love it. We frequently drive Route 1A from Portsmouth to Hampton, NH just for the rich houses and beaches, usually a fair amount of cool cars cruise it on the weekend.. Hampton will remind you of the Jersey Shore show, but between there and Portsmouth it is sweet.

Acadia is where I'd go, but I live here.

Ogunquit is probably the best looking beach. York may be the place to look at, decent beaches tons of good food.

Cheapest lobster roll in the area is in Elliot, ME and the corner market. 

Pretty much, as said, Portsmouth, NH to Freeport, ME is sweet just about anywhere.

You will also be an easy drive to North Conway (think MT. Washington hill climb), and Lake Winnie. Also the lakes region in ME.

It sounds like Portland and Portsmouth are the top recommendations so far. 

I'd throw Newport, Rhode Island out there.  Lot of great history, right on the ocean, and all sorts of good restaurants.  And the Audrain museum always has a great car collection on display.  

Just got back from a whirlwind trip.  We stopped in Bar Harbor and Arcadia NP.  Close to that area is the town of Castine, formally Majabigwaduce, where there's the outline of 'Fort George' a British fort from the was of independence, and the target of the Penobscot expedition, the worst navel defeat the US suffered until Pearl Harbor.  Lovely little town, much smaller and quieter than Bar Harbor, and if you're interested in history a great place to walk around, and if you read up on the siege/battle, it's fascinating to look around and imagine what all sides were facing.  P.S. if you read up, be prepared to find out what an ass Paul Revere really was.  Admittedly it's not a great fort or anything, just the remains of the earthen embankments, but the village has lot's of historical markers showing where and when certain events happened.  On the way to main we went through the Adirondacks, and visited Fort Ticonderoga, which is amazing and had a hell of a busy few decades.   

We also went down to Mystic CT, as in the setting for Mystic Pizza.  What's cool about Mystic is Mystic seaport, a great maritime museum, with some great exhibits, boats, old village buildings etc.  And it's also pet friendly.  Highly recommended.  

That's all I've got

I'll second Newport RI with the caveat that every time my wife and I have stayed there it's been off season.   We've typically gotten a room in one of the smaller inns in town, once the car is parked we walk everywhere.  It's very busy in the summer though.   

I lived and worked in Groton CT for three years; Mystic is a great town and X 2 on visiting Mystic Seaport.  The nearby towns of Stonington and Noank are both on the water and have some great restaurants as well.

Seacoast Maine is everything mentioned above, there's pretty much something for everyone.  Portland and north is more of what I'd consider most of us think of Maine as being.  Rocky coastline, small villages and lots of lobster boats.

We spent a week at a VRBO in Southport Maine. It's a beautiful area and kind of off the beaten path. I can recommend Robinson's Wharf for food and lobster. https://www.robinsonswharf.com/ They sell it by the pound already steamed and the restaurant is top-notch.

The LL Bean store in Freeport is pretty interesting. As are the Maine Botanical Gardens. https://www.mainegardens.org/

I also enjoyed the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, ME. 

The wife and I were just talking about how we haven't had good lobster in a couple of years. It might be time to go back. 

I'm in Southeast MA, but just spent a few days in the Kittery, Maine/Portsmouth, NH area for a wedding. I really liked it up there. A LOT. Lots of tourist attractions, but enough local charm to make it cool. Hit up a couple of decent food spots, and even found a good BBQ joint! I want to go back ASAP. 

If you find yourself south of Boston, the Plymouth Waterfront is pretty nice in the summer. There are some decent food spots, the views are nice, and it's small enough to take it in quickly. And yes, Plymouth Rock is more like a pebble than a rock. 

I'll tell you where NOT to go: Cape Cod. It's boring, a complete traffic nightmare pretty much from May-October, and all the trees are small. I live close to it, and the only reason for me to go is a great record store in Hyannis that I hit up in the off-season. 

11GTCS said:

Rocky coastline, small villages and lots of lobster boats.

Here's a couple now!

Kittery, Maine

If you're a sporting kind of person, I'd recommend trying to hit a track day at club motorsports.  It's an excellent track with an amazing view of the white mountains..

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

Thread Jack!  688i in the background.  (Real LA boats had fair water planes not bow planes BTW. )  

For those not in on the inside joke a much younger version of 11GTCS used to work frequently with the outside machinists at Electric Boat in Groton CT.  Preach is a supervisor for the outside machinists at PSNY in Kittery Maine.  We’re hoping to meet up for a beer at some point.

11GTCS said:

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

We’re hoping to meet up for a beer at some point.

We shall and anyone else posting in this thread.

preach (dudeist priest) said:

11GTCS said:

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

We’re hoping to meet up for a beer at some point.

We shall and anyone else posting in this thread.

I'm in, if it's an open invite!  I can even speak the lingo, I'm a multiaxis guy who is currently a contract programmer for CNCs :) 

We love Newport, RI and Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard.  I do a lot of voices when out east - pahk the cah...you know them.   

We started planning a 2 week east coast summer vacation starting with the map on the back of the Cape Cod Potato Chips bag one cold winter day.  

Always eat clam chahwder for lunch.

Newport, Middletown, Jamestown, and Narragansett RI are nice, and you could fly into Providence so you avoid the construction in Boston. They are shutting down one of the tunnels in Boston on weekends making the airport a nightmare to get to or leave. 
 

There's also Old Lyme and Mystic CT for alternatives to the Maine suggestions. I don't think you could go wrong with Maine, but there are alternatives along LI sound and Narraganset bay. 

11GTCS said:

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

Thread Jack!  688i in the background.  (Real LA boats had fair water planes not bow planes BTW. )  

For those not in on the inside joke a much younger version of 11GTCS used to work frequently with the outside machinists at Electric Boat in Groton CT.  Preach is a supervisor for the outside machinists at PSNY in Kittery Maine.  We’re hoping to meet up for a beer at some point.

Former programmer who used to do contract work for PSNY here, I'm in! 

I've spent a lot of time in Portsmouth, NH for work, including most of 2016.  Pretty much meets all of your criteria, except maybe the "friendly" part, but that is always going to be a hit-or-miss thing in New England.  But being a vacation town, folks in Portsmouth are rarely outright rude, since being so would affect their livelihood.  A large portion of the town buildings are restaurants, and by nature they are all really good. If you stay at hotel in town, you can pretty much walk everywhere.  Of you stay at the Marriott on the edge of town next to I-95, they have a free shuttle that goes into town.  None of the hotels are cheap, especially "in season", but that will be the case at any of these New England destinations.

One comment - the entire area is basically part of a river delta, so you won't see a lot of elevation change until you go inland for quite a ways.

A few side notes; there are two guitar stores in the area - Gary's Guitars and a Guitar Center.  Both aren't bad, but inventory varies a lot - I bought a fair amount from both during the many times I've been up there for work.  There is a neat car shop "Brit Bits" on Rt 1A that often has some neat cars in the lot for sale. The Kittery Trading Post is worth a visit - it's sort of like a Cabela's or Bass ProShop, but has been there for ages.  Really neat boom-stick room. The main LL Bean store is an easy day-trip away.

Really random note: the local hospital in Portsmouth seems competent and reasonably affordable. For better or worse, I've had two ER visits there (kidney stone attacks).