Easy Hikes

11 adventures tagged Easy Hikes.

Bethany, 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.

🚗 About 20-25 min🥾 Easy to moderate. Rolling woods on the blue-blazed Naugatuck Trail with more little ups and downs than you'd expect, plus one short, steep, rocky scramble up onto the boulder. Good exercise.★★★☆☆

Easy Hikes

Oxford, 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.

🚗 About 15 min (the closest of all these hikes)🥾 Easy. Pretty flat and well-marked, no real climbing, on a mix of dirt and rocky trail.★★★★☆

Easy Hikes

New 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.

🚗 About 50 min🥾 Easy to moderate; a short steady climb to the tower

Beaches

Madison, 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.

🚗 About 45 min🥾 Easy, flat everywhere★★★★★

State Parks

East 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.

🚗 About 55 min (or take the Chester-Hadlyme ferry for the full effect)🥾 Easy grounds; Train Trail to Blue Trail is an easy-to-moderate 1.5 mi★★★★★

Waterfalls

East 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.

🚗 About 55 min🥾 Falls viewing easy; the Vista Trail loop is moderate★★★★★

State Parks

Killingworth, 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.

🚗 About 40 min🥾 Easy loops to moderate scrambles, you choose★★★★★

Waterfalls

Southbury, 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.

🚗 About 20 min🥾 Easy★★★★☆

Easy Hikes

Hamden, 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.

🚗 About 25 min🥾 Moderate by distance, easy by terrain (Tower Trail)★★★★★

Beaches

Milford, 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.

🚗 About 20 min🥾 Easy, flat★★★★★

Waterfalls

Kent, 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.

🚗 About 1 hr 15 min🥾 Easy to moderate★★★★★