East Coast USA - Canada Holiday - Help!

Soldato
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Hi all,

I'm looking to book a fly and self drive holiday to the East Coast USA/Canada next year & I'd like to advice on hotels and the best way to get a good price from any of you with experience in doing this?

I'd be looking to fly to Boston and then do the following route:

Boston > Québec > Montréal > Ottawa > Toronto > Niagara Falls > Amish Country > Washington DC > New York > Boston

So a few questions:

1. How does this route look to you that have travelled to any of these places, are there things you'd add or change?

2. What do you recommend for hotels. I'm going to have a small child and my wife with me so it has to be ok but I'm easy with something like a Best Western or is there something better I could get for the same kind of price? Would you recommend booking with the same company for all locations if they have a hotel to try and get a discount or just use local hotels?

3. There will be another 3 adults on the trip with us. Do you think a Chevy Tahoe will be big enough for 5 adults + 1 child or do you think the dreaded minivan would be required?

Thanks,

Adam
 
Man of Honour
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This is exactly the trip I did in September.

I will try and give you a fairly comprehensive answer this evening.

We did it in 2.5 weeks but didn't do Washington dc and spent only a day in New York City so unless you have more time your route is a little ambitious as you are forgetting how much awesome stuff there is in New Hampshire and Vermont. This was the highlight for us.
 
Soldato
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That would be really great, thank you! I know I can trust you too being a fellow 5 series driver ;)

So the plan timing wise was as follows:

- Boston = 2 Days
- Quebec = 2 Days
- Toronto = 2 Days
- Washington = 2 Days
- New York = 2 Days

Everything else was 1 day.

Cheers
 
Soldato
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Boston is a great city, one of my favorite American destinations. It's not typical big city America as it's been heavily influenced by the European settlers who arrived there, it's also a fairly friendly and low crime area (comparatively for the states). For example, it's quite common for drivers to wave you across the street if you even look like stepping off the pavement as opposed to somewhere like Chicago where they positively speed up and try to run you down ;)

How much time are you allotting for the various destinations? You've got a long route and America is big so that's a lot of time driving. Boston for example could easily take up 1 week plus on it's own!
 
Soldato
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That sounds good, friendly is always a positive!

I've chucked the times above, but I'm flexible to change. We've got 2 weeks over there and I want to make the most of it. We've not long come back from a 2 week West Coast Tour and that was extremely tiring as we had 1 night in most destinations so I've moved these to two to give us at least 1 full day of exploring.

Cheers,

Adam
 
Caporegime
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As above, Boston is one of the nicest North American cities, very pedestrian friendly as well. Two days is probably just about enough depending on what you want to do and what time of year.

Get yourself a Freedom trail booklet and walk from start (city centre) to end (USS Constitution). It's a really nice walk and covers most of the historic buildings and history of the city, break for lunch at Quincy Market and then do the free USS Constitution tour at the end. Harvard university is a nice place to go and wander round the grounds if you have time as well. Depending on the season make sure you get yourself on a whale watching tour. It's very commercial (huge 200+ person boats) but it's easy to get to the railings and I saw about a half a dozen humpbacks when I did it.

Ottawa on the other hand is ok but a day is probably a good amount of time for the city itself. Parliament hill is the highlight but there are some museums and a shopping centre in town that may be worth a trip (that's about it...). The ribs in Lone Star are great too. Otherwise you could spend an few hours in Gatenue park, on the Quebec side as well, it's a nice little park.
 
Associate
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Boston is a great city, one of my favorite American destinations. It's not typical big city America as it's been heavily influenced by the European settlers who arrived there, it's also a fairly friendly and low crime area (comparatively for the states). For example, it's quite common for drivers to wave you across the street if you even look like stepping off the pavement as opposed to somewhere like Chicago where they positively speed up and try to run you down ;)

How much time are you allotting for the various destinations? You've got a long route and America is big so that's a lot of time driving. Boston for example could easily take up 1 week plus on it's own!

This is interesting because as someone who's only knowledge of Boston comes from Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon films I'd always imagined Boston as a crime-ridden hole. :p
 
Man of Honour
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Ok..

I think you are going to need to somewhat rationalise your route because of the time you have available - you'll need to cut probably both Washington DC and New York City. I think you are somewhat underestimating the distances involved - it took an entire day pretty much to drive from Niagara Falls to New York City. Washington DC is quite a bit further. You've also missed out a few bits that are IMHO unmissable.

DC and New York are somewhat easy to fit into a different trip whereas its probably unlikely you'll go back to New Hampshire.

We went in September and our route was as follows:

Boston > New Hampshire (White Mountains) > Vermont > Montreal > Ottawa > Toronto > Niagara > New York City > Boston.

We spent 3 nights in Boston including the arrival night, so that was one full day exploring Boston and the second full day we drove down to Provincetown for a Whale Watching tour. Spent ages working which was best - the tours from Boston spend half the time travelling whereas from Provincetown we were seeing Whales 15 minutes after departing. Boston is a wonderful city and a full day is enough to explore it quite nicely.

After that we headed up the coast through to Maine stopping off in Kennebunkport and a large mall just over the New Hampshire border for some tax free shopping. You could conceivably drop this bit without losing much if you wanted to fit more in elsewhere.

After that was New Hampshire properly - we stayed for 2 nights in North Conway which gave us a good amount of time to explore the White Mountains region which is absolutely incredible. I was expecting this trip to be underwhelming in terms of scenery - last year we did Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest which was incredible - but it really wasn't. IMHO it would be very very silly to miss New Hampshire and the White Mountains. The drive up Mount Washington was a particular highlight.

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From here it was across to Vermont for a single night stay - again via stunning scenic roads and a trip to the Ben and Jerrys Ice Cream factory which for $4 each is great value. We stayed overnight near Burlington in Vermont.

Next day we headed over into New York State and up through the Adirondack State Park towards the Canadian border where we crossed over for 2 nights in Montreal which gave us one full day exploring the city. Montreal is a wonderful city, you'll enjoy it.

After Montreal we drove to Ottawa - again 2 nights so 1 day to explore Ottawa. Ottawa is again a lovely city and well worth the trip. There isn't much to it but its nice to have a relaxing day.

After Ottawa it was a drive to Toronto - this took all day and included a small detour over the Thousand Islands Parkway which runs adjacent to the free-way and is worth doing.

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2 nights in Toronto, again to give a full day in the city. Very enjoyable, one of the best cities I've visited.

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We spent some time in Toronto Zoo after check-out from the hotel and headed to Niagara for an overnight stay. It's not a bad place for an overnight stay as it suffers from an excess of hotel rooms so plenty of deals to be had. You only need an hour or two to 'do' the falls.

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Next morning we headed to New York City - well, Newark for a more convenient and better value hotel. This was an all day drive.

Full day in New York City. The final day we spent driving from New York back to Boston to drop the car and fly home.

This was a total of 16 days, so a few more than you are planning. This is why I think going down to DC is quite ambitious - especially once you put New Hampshire into your plan which I think is essential. You really are best leaving DC for another trip.

Hotel wise we mostly stayed at Courtyard Marriott or Hampton Inn properties on this trip which are mid level hotels, better than the budget stuff but not eye-wateringly expensive either. You also get a consistent standard of quality/service in each one. I booked them all through Hotels.com who offer you '1 free night' for every 10 you book, effectively 10% off. Given they are normally as cheap as the cheapest price anyway it's always worked out the most cost effective way for me.

You can get cheaper hotels doing bidding through sites like Priceline.com but Hotels.com wins the cost v convenience battle for me.

Hopefully this is of use!
 
Soldato
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Fox, I thought I'd replied to this - sorry.

Thanks for taking the time to post all of that, it looks absolutely fantastic. I'm going to be doing a lot more planning over the next few weeks. New Hampshire & the White Mountains look absolutely beautiful :)
 
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