Category
Weekend Road Trips
7 adventures tagged Weekend Road Trips.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.