Gorgeous White Mountains, wildlife, beautiful fall colors and delicious maple syrup; this state has it all!!
We spent 1 day in New Hampshire. We traveled from Boston, MA and it was a 1 Hour 30 minutes’ drive. We visited this place in the month of October so drive itself was scenic one. We visited Franconia Notch State Park. It has 2 famous attractions.
- Flume Gorge
- Aerial Tramway
Best Time to visit: Autumn (Late September – Early November)
Use the following link to track fall colors in New Hampshire and plan your trip accordingly.
Before starting our trip, we had best breakfast in Polly’s Pancake Parlor. Trust me you won’t go wrong with this place. Those were one of the best pancakes we had with fresh maple syrup. Good news is you can also buy fresh maple products in their gift shop.
After finishing our breakfast, we started the scenic drive by taking Kancamagus Highway (Route 112) from Lincoln to Conway and got to see gorgeous fall colors.
Next destination on our list was Franconia Notch State Park.
Flume Gorge
It is a natural gorge extending 800 feet at the base of Mount Liberty. The trip starts and ends at the Flume Visitor Center.
Entrance Fee: Adults – $16 | Child – $14
For latest updates please visit their site.
There are two options to do this hike. Either you can walk through Gorge or take 2 miles loop. We did 2 miles loop and really enjoyed it. On this loop we saw famous Covered Bridge, Glacial Boulders. They have information board at each attraction which was very helpful. We spent around 2 to 3 hours here.
Following this we took aerial tram.
Aerial Tramway
This is the first passenger aerial tramway in North America which started operating in 1938. It is an 8-minute scenic ride in enclosed cable car. It brings passengers to the 4080-foot summit of Cannon Mountain. This ride gives amazing panoramic views of valleys and mountains. From the top we can see views of the mountains of New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, New York and Canada.
At the summit there are walking paths, observation deck and cafeteria. We took the trail at the summit and thankfully it was a clear day and we got spectacular views of the mountains. It took us around 30 minutes to complete the trail.
Tram operates from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM.
Entrance Fee: Adults – $18 | Child – $16
For updated fairs please visit their link.
Echo Lake Beach
The last destination on our list was Echo Lake Beach which was the best part of our trip. This lake is surrounded by trees with wonderful fall colors. We got to see reflection of these trees in the lake around 5:30 PM.
This was a perfect spot to end our trip.