We live in Florida, where fall just means it’s slightly less humid outside. The days do get shorter and the shops and cafes fill with all manner of pumpkin flavored things, but that’s about the only thing that changes for the season. So when Pete and I planned a New Hampshire fall food road trip through the White Mountains, we wanted to experience all things autumn. Hiking to amazing look-outs, tasty fall treats, and driving the famous Kancamagus Highway.
There are a lot of fall road trip itineraries out there that have you looping through both Vermont and New Hampshire in a week. And that’s definitely doable, but you’ll spend most of your time in the car. This itinerary stays in the White Mountains, with one base and short drives, so you’re actually in the places instead of just driving between them.
Here’s the five day New Hampshire fall road trip route we took, where we ate, where we stayed, and all the things I’d tell a friend before they booked.
When to Plan a New Hampshire Fall Food Road Trip
No one can promise you the exact dates for when foliage will peak as it changes each year based on the weather. But you can get pretty close!
Generally, northern New Hampshire turns first, usually around mid to late September, and color works its way south through October. For me, and I’m no meteorologist, but it seems the first week of October is the sweet spot for the White Mountains most years, so that’s when we went.
The year we visited had been rainy, though, and a lot of locals told us the color was disappointing compared to what they were used to since the rain strips the leaves from the trees. But we thought the fall foliage was spectacular! And I think the photos back us up. When your baseline is a southern October, a “disappointing” New Hampshire fall is still the most fall color you’ve ever seen.
So my advice for planning a New Hampshire fall road trip is to book late-September to early-October. As it gets closer to Halloween, fall foliage season might turn into what New Englanders call “stick season” with bare trees if it rains a lot or starts to snow.
Day 1: Boston to Holderness and Dinner at Squam Lake Inn
We flew into Boston from Orlando, rented a car, and drove north. Direct flights into Boston tend to be cheaper than flying into New Hampshire, and if you time it right you can work in a stop in Salem, Massachusetts, on your way up to the mountains.
We broke up the drive to Mount Washington with a night at Squam Lake Inn in Holderness, and it turned out to be one of our favorite fall meals of the whole trip. When we arrived, there were pumpkins and mums on the front steps, windows open, and crickets chirping a soft hum. I felt my shoulders drop about thirty seconds after we parked.
Dinner was our first real taste of fall. I was tired from the travel day, so I ordered a mocktail called the Fig Jam Bee’s Knees, made with zero proof gin, fig jam, and honey simple syrup. Our server told us the jam and the syrup were both made in house, and it was good enough that I didn’t miss the “real” gin at all.
Then we shared small plates, which is how Pete and I eat when we want to try everything. Grilled artichokes with a house made lemon garlic aioli. An apple honey pecan toast with burrata, gala apple slices, honey cider syrup, and fresh thyme scattered over the top, which tasted like someone had put October on a piece of bread. And for the main dish I had the butternut pumpkin ravioli with mascarpone, browned sage butter, blistered cranberries, and a pecan oatmeal crumb. I mean, it can’t get any more autumnal than that, right?
Breakfast the next morning was homemade pancakes, sausage, fruit, and a lot of coffee before we got back on the road. If you’re driving up from Boston, this is a stop worth building into the plan rather than treating as somewhere to sleep.
Day 2: Artist’s Bluff and the Omni Mount Washington
We got an early start and drove to Artist’s Bluff in Franconia Notch for a morning hike before our check in time at the Omni.
Now, I know you’ve probably seen photos of this famous valley. But the reality in October is that it gets pretty crowded, so in person it’s not at all like what you see on social media. But Artist’s Bluff is beautiful and absolutely worth seeing. It’s just that during foliage season, it’s not really a “hike.” It’s more of a slow moving line of people shuffling toward the viewpoint, even for us on a weekday morning.
The loop runs about a mile and a half with around 450 feet of gain, and there’s signage for a one directional loop to manage the traffic. If you want to try and avoid crowds, I’d get there around sunrise (but pack a flashlight for the trail if you’re there while it’s still dark).
My other tip is to take the second trail on the loop up to Bald Mountain. It’s higher, there’s a bit of scrambling over some rock to get up it, and almost nobody does it (usually because they just wanted the Artist’s Bluff photo and they’re not wearing proper hiking boots). But I’m telling you the views are just as good and you might have them to yourself.
Also, during our hike that morning, the Bald Mountain trail was covered in ladybugs. Hundreds of them! My grandmother was from New Hampshire and she loved ladybugs, so I took that as a little heavenly wink from her.
After our hike, we drove to the Omni Mount Washington in Bretton Woods, which is as grand as everyone says and has a view of the mountains and the foliage that makes you stop talking mid sentence. Once we checked in and got settled, we dove into the welcome amenity of house made apple cider donuts. There was also house made jerky, peanut butter fudge, maple fudge, candied walnuts, and dehydrated apples. We ate some immediately and then zipped the jersey and apples into sandwich bags for hiking snacks, which turned out to be the fanciest snacks on the trail.
Day 3: The Flume Gorge and the Kancamagus Highway
We booked the first entry of the day at the Flume Gorge, and it felt like we practically had the place to ourselves for a little while as we walked the path to The Flume on a cool autumn morning. I have vague, flickering memories of being here as a child with my grandmother and her sisters, and walking it again as an adult was nostalgic and lovely.
The Flume is an 800 foot granite gorge at the base of Mount Liberty in Franconia Notch State Park. The walls climb to about 90 feet and narrow to roughly 12 feet apart, carved out by glacial meltwater, with a boardwalk threading through the middle and a waterfall at the top end. The full loop is a two mile self guided walk that takes about an hour and a half. There’s also plenty to see on the walk, including covered bridges and a wolf’s den cave too.
Two practical things. First, you need a reservation for The Flume during the autumn season. It’s a timed entry to control the crowds, and you book it directly on their website at New Hampshire State Parks. For a weekday, I just reserved our tickets a few days prior. But for a busy fall weekend I’d plan more in advance.
Second, wear hiking boots or shoes with a good tread. The trail has some elevation, mossy boardwalk sections, stairs that get slippery when wet, and parts of it are steeper than they look. We passed several people in what I’d call fashion boots with high heels (HIGH HEELS!!!) slow side stepping their way down steep trails and wet steps. Save the cute boots for dinner.
Driving The Kancamagus Highway
After the Flume we picked up the Kancamagus Highway, the 34 mile stretch of Route 112 that runs between Lincoln and Conway through the White Mountain National Forest.
It definitely earns its reputation for being one of the most scenic fall foliage drives. The road climbs and curves through a thick forest, and in early October the color comes at you from both sides and overhead at once. There are pullouts every few miles and you’ll want to stop at most of them. We’d packed snacks and water from the hotel, which turned out to be necessary rather than clever, and we broke up the drive with two hikes.
Sabbaday Falls is short, easy, and it’s the one to do if you only do one. Champney Falls is more work, which is exactly why the trail iss quieter. We had long stretches of it more or less to ourselves, and the quiet up there is a different quality of quiet than you get at a roadside overlook.
One thing to plan around: the sun drops behind the mountains a lot earlier than you’d expect. Sunset on your weather app is not sunset in a notch. We spent the last part of the afternoon feeling like we were chasing the light back toward Bretton Woods for our dinner reservation, so I’d build in more buffer than seems necessary.
Where to Eat on the Kancamagus Highway
There’s actually no where to eat along the highway once you get into the thick of the forest. This is sort of a pack your own picnic kinda drive. There are no restaurants on the Kancamagus Highway. No gas stations either, and cell service is patchy to nonexistent. Every stop you’ll want to make is a pullout, an overlook, or a trailhead, and none of them have so much as a vending machine.
So the food plan is really a packing plan:
- Stop for snacks on your way up. A grocery store or a farm stand will sort you out. Trail mix, apples, string cheese, jerky, whatever travels well in a car. We bought bulk trail mix and a box of sandwich bags to divide it into portions, and those bags earned their keep all week, including for the snack spread waiting in our room at the hotel.
- Pack a real lunch, not just snacks. We ate sandwiches sitting by a waterfall and it was one of the better meals of the trip, which says something given how well we ate that week. Must have been just the feeling of being out in nature.
- Buy more water than you think you need. We picked up a couple of gallon jugs before heading up and kept them in the car to refill our water bottles. If you’re hiking, carry more than whatever’s in your bottle when you set off. There’s nowhere to buy a drink for 34 miles.
If you’re the kind of traveler who plans around meals, and I very much am, this is the one stretch of a White Mountains fall itinerary where you have to plan around the absence of them. Lincoln and Conway bookend the drive and both have good places to eat, so you could plan a proper meal on one end or the other. Just know they get really busy in foliage season, and if you’re coming out the Conway side late in the day you’ll be sitting in traffic for awhile.
The Hunter’s Full Moon Dinner at Bretton Woods
After our Kancamagus drive, we got back to the hotel in just the nick of time, cleaned up fast, and went to the Bretton Woods Hunter’s Full Moon Summit Dinner. This meal was one of the most memorable dinners I’ve ever had.
It started with a ginger pear mocktail and a gondola ride up to Rosebrook Lodge. And I gotta say, sipping a drink while riding our own private gondola to dinner is a vibe.
Once on top of the mountain, there was an outdoor reception overlooking the valley. And the views were so incredible that everyone couldn’t stop taking photos as servers made the rounds passing out chicken satay with beet root chutney and smoked salmon with dill creme. Once we were all called inside to our seats, the dinner began. There was an amuse bouche of venison tartare paired with a pinot noir. And then a starter of crispy fried Brussels sprouts with roasted pumpkin goat cheese, pomegranate, and pepitas.
Right before main course, the full moon started to rise over Mount Washington, which was incredible to see. We all went outside to take more photos, and then came back in for the entree of beef filet medallions with sweet potato frites and maple bearnaise. Between the Brussels sprouts with pumpkin goat cheese and the maple bearnaise, I was in fall food heaven. But then dessert came, pumpkin cheesecake with a maple crumb. The night couldn’t have been more perfect.
Day 4: A Vermont Detour to the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum
After a quick breakfast at the Omni, we drove just under an hour west into Vermont to see the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. It looks like a historic library from a storybook, and if you’re a book or history lover, it’s worth the drive. There’s dark walnut everywhere, spiral staircases, gilt framed paintings, and natural light coming down from tall windows. A man named Horace Fairbanks gave it to the town in 1871 and visiting it feels a bit like stepping back in time.
Horace’s brother, Franklin Fairbanks, came down to Florida in 1881 with his friend Charles Hosmer Morse, also of St. Johnsbury, and the two of them helped found Winter Park, where we live now. Fairbanks Avenue and Morse Boulevard are named after them. I drive down both of those streets every week and had no idea they led back to a library in Vermont.
If I lived in St. Johnsbury, I’d visit the Athenaeum constantly. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to pull a book off a shelf and stay until someone turns the lights off. We wandered for a long time, longer than we’d planned, looking at books and paintings and eventually the gift shop, which is really more of a gift bookcase. They had vintage books for sale, bookmarks, and a few long sleeve shirts. Of course, I bought some bookmarks.
People came and went, but never enough to feel busy. Footsteps echo a little and the floorboards creak, and there’s a curator on hand who’ll answer anything you think to ask. The spiral staircases are roped off to protect them and the mezzanine, which is a shame and also completely understandable.
The gallery at the back is the part people travel for. It’s said to be the oldest unaltered art gallery in the country, and the whole back wall belongs to Albert Bierstadt’s The Domes of the Yosemite. The rooms themselves aren’t large, but the artwork feels larger than life in them. Standing in there, it was hard to believe we were in a small town in Vermont and not somewhere in Europe.
On the drive back we stopped for coffee at The Place Above the Notch in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, where the owner roasts her own beans and will happily tell you about them. It’s worth building into the route (it’s kinda on the way), though check the hours first since it’s a small business. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon on a foliage walk around the Omni grounds, which was a restful afternoon before our journey home.
Day 5: The Drive Home
We packed up and headed back to Boston under a grey, moody sky, which felt like the right ending. While I was sad to leave, I truly can’t wait to go back again.
If I tweaked one thing, I’d give the Kancamagus a full unhurried day instead of pairing it with the Flume, just so we weren’t racing the light at the end. There are more hikes up there than we had time for, too.
But the pace of this trip was right, and it’s the version of a New Hampshire fall foliage road trip I’d recommend to a friend. One night on the way up so the drive from Boston doesn’t feel so long. A base you don’t have to leave, so you unpack once. Two big hikes, one great drive, one extraordinary dinner, and one day that’s mostly just site seeing.
I’ll be back, and next time I’m going further north to Berlin, where my family is from. I’ve been coming to New Hampshire my whole life and somehow never appreciated it the way I do now.
Looking for more New England fall foliage trip ideas? Here are a few more for inspiration:
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