Dad-tested destinations worth the drive.
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Weekend adventures with the kids
Dad-tested destinations worth the drive.
Waterfalls, easy hikes, state parks, and road trips within a couple of hours of Shelton, CT. Real trips, real snacks, real bathroom notes.
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Bigger HikesBerlin, CT
Ragged Mountain
The biggest challenge on my list. A rugged traprock loop with real rock scrambles and bare-cliff views down onto Wassel Reservoir and Hart Ponds, in Berlin. About 35 minutes away. Next up.
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Weekend inspiration
Pick your kind of Saturday
Family Adventures
33 adventures
Hidden Gems
14 adventures
State Parks
12 adventures
Easy Hikes
11 adventures
Bigger Hikes
7 adventures
Weekend Road Trips
7 adventures
Rainy Day Activities
6 adventures
Museums
5 adventures
Beaches
5 adventures
Waterfalls
4 adventures
Day Adventures
4 adventures
Bucket List Adventures
4 adventures
Campgrounds
3 adventures
More adventures
Easy HikesBethany, CT
Beacon Cap
A quiet, all-woods loop to a striking glacial boulder in the Naugatuck State Forest. Good exercise and total solitude, but no views the whole way except the one you climb the rock for. Honestly, not my favorite.
Bigger HikesHamden, CT
West Rock Ridge
My favorite hike, just ahead of Mount Higby, and it's the closest real ridge to home. A busy family pond at the bottom with fishing and a bathroom, then you climb and the ridge is all yours, quiet enough to hear the chickadees. About 20 minutes away.
Easy HikesOxford, CT
Rockhouse Hill Sanctuary
The closest hike to home, an easy, well-marked Oxford preserve that's genuinely great for kids and dogs. Pretty flat, one overlook, no real challenge. A fine, quiet walk, just not one that pulls me back.
Bigger HikesBethany, CT
Mount Sanford
Easy and super quiet, all woods with rolling ups and downs until one climb opens up a big overlook across the central valley. More Bluff Head than Higby, but the calm and the view are the draw.
Bigger HikesGuilford, CT
Bluff Head
The quiet southern end of the same blue-blazed ridge as Mount Higby. No views on the wooded climb, then two great viewpoints over the pond at the top. Easy, empty, and worth it.
Bigger HikesMeriden, CT
Chauncey Peak
The next traprock ridge over from Mount Higby, and it delivered. An easy hike with a climb you barely notice, ending at open cliffs over Bradley Hubbard Reservoir, a golf course, and a row of peaks. Higby's awesome little cousin.
State ParksWaterford, CT
Harkness Memorial State Park
A 42-room seaside mansion, two formal gardens, and a great lawn running down to Long Island Sound. Stroller-easy and good for every age, which is exactly why it's next on my list.
Bigger HikesMiddlefield / Meriden, CT
Mount Higby
A rocky traprock ridge over Meriden with peekaboo views the whole way up and open ledges to sit on and catch the wind. I hiked it solo to scout it. Easier climb than I expected, and a keeper.
WaterfallsCheshire, CT
Roaring Brook Falls
The tallest single-drop waterfall in Connecticut, sitting at the top of a steep, barely-marked climb in Cheshire. I hiked it solo to scout it first. Big payoff, but this one's for older kids, not the stroller crew.
Easy HikesNew Preston, CT
Mount Tom State Park
A short hike up to a 100-year-old stone tower you can climb for a Litchfield Hills view, with a spring-fed swimming pond waiting at the bottom. Hike and swim in one trip. Still on our list.
Day AdventuresGroton & Mystic, CT
Day Adventure: Groton & Mystic
A real nuclear submarine (free), lunch by a drawbridge that performs on the hour, the best ice cream timing trick in Connecticut, and a bookstore with goats on the way home. The eastern cluster, assembled.
Day AdventuresBranford, CT
Day Adventure: Branford
A boat tour through an archipelago of tiny pink-granite islands with pirate-treasure legends, a village that time forgot, seafood-shack lunch, and ice cream on the green. Episode three goes to the shoreline.
Family AdventuresMontville (Oakdale), CT
The Dinosaur Place
Over forty life-size dinosaurs on wooded trails, a splash pad, and a maze. For the dinosaur-phase years, this is the promised land, and it's an hour from home.
MuseumsGroton, CT
Submarine Force Museum & USS Nautilus
You walk through an actual nuclear submarine. The first one ever built, the one that went under the North Pole. It's free. I don't know what else you need to hear.
BeachesEast Lyme, CT
Rocky Neck State Park
A half-mile crescent of calm, shallow water, a 1930s stone pavilion that looks like a castle, and trains rumbling over the marsh. The little-kid beach, perfected.
Family AdventuresNorton Park, Plainville, CT
Plainville Hot Air Balloon Festival
Hot air balloons at dawn, a balloon glow at dusk, fireworks over a small-town park, and a giant slide in between. One weekend a year, and it's free to walk in.
MuseumsOrange, CT
PEZ Visitor Center
The PEZ factory is in Orange, Connecticut, fifteen minutes from home, and you can watch the candy get made under the world's largest collection of dispensers. This is not a drill.
Family AdventuresMystic, CT
Mystic Aquarium
Beluga whales you watch nose-to-glass, penguins with personal drama, and the whole of Mystic waiting outside the gates. The big-ticket day, done right.
BeachesMadison, CT
Hammonasset Beach State Park
Two miles of beach, a boardwalk that goes forever, a free nature center with touch tanks, and a campground big enough to make a whole weekend of it.
State ParksEast Haddam, CT
Gillette Castle State Park
A stone castle built by the actor who played Sherlock Holmes, with 47 weird doors, a lost railroad, a 75-foot train tunnel, and a river ferry to get there. Connecticut's best make-believe is real.
Weekend Road TripsEssex, CT
Essex Steam Train & Riverboat
A real steam locomotive up the Connecticut River valley, then a riverboat past Gillette Castle. For a train-phase kid this is not a day trip, it's a pilgrimage.
State ParksRocky Hill, CT
Dinosaur State Park
Two hundred million year old dinosaur tracks, in the rock, under a dome, and you can cast your own to take home if you bring the supplies. The real half of Connecticut's dinosaur pair.
WaterfallsEast Haddam, CT
Devil's Hopyard State Park
A 60-foot waterfall, perfectly round potholes in the rock that colonial farmers blamed on the devil, and a name kids will not stop saying. Pairs with Gillette Castle for the full East Haddam day.
Day AdventuresShelton, CT
Day Adventure: Shelton
A waterfall on the Housatonic, a proper deli sandwich, farm ice cream, and a pick-your-own farm that changes with the seasons. One town, one tank of gas barely touched.
Day AdventuresDerby & Ansonia, CT
Day Adventure: Derby & Ansonia
Valley episode two: a free nature center with animal ambassadors, a riverwalk along two rivers, apizza that outranks its zip code, and a state park most of the state forgot. Ten minutes from Shelton, all of it.
State ParksKillingworth, CT
Chatfield Hollow State Park
A covered bridge, a swimming pond, and a hillside of rock caves kids can actually scramble into. The park nobody outside Killingworth talks about, which is exactly the point.
Hidden GemsNiantic (East Lyme), CT
The Book Barn & the Niantic Boardwalk
An outdoor used bookstore with resident cats and goats, a mile of boardwalk over the beach, and ice cream in between. The most un-Google-able great Saturday in Connecticut.
Family AdventuresBridgeport, CT
Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo
The state's only zoo, twenty minutes from home: tigers, a rainforest building, a working antique carousel, and the exact right size for little legs.
MuseumsCheshire, CT
Barker Character, Comic & Cartoon Museum
A museum in Cheshire stuffed floor to ceiling with cartoon history: PEZ dispensers, lunchboxes, California Raisins, and every character your kids' grandparents grew up on. The ultimate rainy-day wildcard.
WaterfallsSouthbury, CT
Southford Falls State Park
Twenty minutes from home, a covered bridge, a waterfall, and a pond full of turtles. The lowest-effort win in the rotation.
Easy HikesHamden, CT
Sleeping Giant State Park
A mountain shaped like a sleeping giant, a gravel road a four-year-old can climb, and a stone castle at the top. This one sells itself.
BeachesMilford, CT
Silver Sands State Park
A boardwalk over the marsh, a beach that doesn't require a highway drive, and a sandbar that appears out of the ocean twice a day like a magic trick.
WaterfallsKent, CT
Kent Falls State Park
A 250-foot waterfall you can walk almost the whole way up, and the kids won't stop talking about it for a week.
Got a spot we should try?
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We're always looking for the next weekend adventure within striking distance of Shelton. Waterfalls, hidden playgrounds, the diner your dad took you to when you were ten. All good.
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