Published by Lonely Planet, this travel guide presents 53 different road trips in New England and then allows the reader to decide how they want to find their trip within the book. For instance, you can look through the section by state, which also includes one specifically for Cape Cod, or you can plan by themed trips, which will cover a variety of different states. You can choose by season, or choose the iconic trips, which are classic routes of the region.

If you aren’t really into the planning stage of your travel, and would rather just get out there and do it, then this is the guidebook for you.

Many of the same trips are repeated in the different sections but by letting the reader choose how to sort through them, it offers something of a more varied planning style than most travel guides offer.

Each trip presented offers practical information, such as numbered maps that correspond to the written text, links to other trips in the same area, suggestions of where to eat and stay, which destinations offer interesting attractions, as well as a logical order in which to visit them.
They go beyond this typical travel information by offering some expert advice from the locals, regional music playlists, history, lore, alternate detours based on personal taste, and websites that offer more detailed information. On the highlighted sidebar on the first page of each trip, important information is listed, such as how many days the trip will take, how many miles, the best months to go in, the starting and ending locations and an icon that depicts whether the trip is historically, food, culture, art, bizarre, best trip or urbanite centric.

It is written in very conversational language and is fun to read. I really enjoyed the general layout of this regional guidebook and its compact size makes it easy to take with you on the road. I did not feel overwhelmed by the amount of information and detail, but felt confident that I could follow the trips through to their conclusion.

Some trips are short and others are long, spanning as much as seven days to complete. This would be my only complaint. I wish that they offered some alternate routes to shorten up some of the longer trips for people who don’t have seven days to complete them in.

What really sets New England Trips apart from all of the other guidebooks is its themed-based trips. As a life long native New Englander, I didn’t expect to get excited over anything in a guidebook of this region, but these theme based trips had me chomping at the bit to get out there and explore. I’ll be taking many of these trips in the near future and reporting about them here at New England Travel.

Some example themed trips are:

Vermont Backroads Ramble
Tip To Tail by Bike & Rail
Diner Diving
Connecticut Wine Trail
Cider Season Sampler
Down on the Farm Vermont Dairies
Litchfield Hills Loop
Book Hunting in the Pioneer Valley
60 Lighthouses in 60 Hours
Buried in Boston (cemeteries)
A Culture Vulture in Provincetown
Ivy league Secrets & Superstitions
Spooky Maine
Antique Alley
Literary New England
Cape Cod Rail Trail

Sounds like fun doesn’t it? Let’s pack up the car and go !