<p>My DS and I are planning to look at some college back East this March. My DS is at a school this Spring semester in Vermont, so I will be dropping him off there at the end of the trip. </p>
<p>Here are the schools he wants to visit.... Hamilton, Colgate, Wes, Vassar, Bard, Brown, Midd, and maybe the Maine schools. Some of these schools will be out for Spring break, so I know it won't be an optimal time to visit, but I really don't want to travel all the way across country again if we don't have to. </p>
<p>Can anyone, who either lives back East in that area, or has done a trip similar in the past, offer any suggestions or tips. I'm looking for the best route.... we will be renting a car and driving, and maybe good inexpensive places to stay. I really don't know how far most of these places are from each other.... well I do know that Colgate and Hamilton are close, and I think Vassar and Bard aren't too far from them.</p>
<p>I'm thinking of flying into Syracuse or Albany??? Don't know what would be better, and going from there towards Rhode Island and Maine, and then to Vermont.... </p>
<p>There’s a great college map book that we borrowed from HS College placement office. It’s similiar to an atlas w/ all the colleges pinpointed on ea state’s map. Not sure if Coll Conf will let me post it’s name but it’s published by winter green Or chard house…It’s a $50 book.</p>
<p>It will definietely help you map out where you want to go. FYI-- There’s only 2 places near Colgate to stay I think the cheaper (not the Colgate Inn) was $120-- it was adequate…</p>
<p>Since you’re flying, I would go on a site like Orbitz and then put in flying into both cities and see what the cheapest fares are. For us, there was a difference of about $150/person when flying out of an airport 1.5 hours away from home for a trip, definitely worth the drive.</p>
<p>kathiep… got it… sorry!! Like I said, I know nothing about New England or the east coast…LOL!!</p>
<p>Thanks for the website suggestion, I will check it out. I have just been tinkering on google maps and that at least gave me a general idea on where to start and which way to go. It looks like Albany would be the best to fly into… haven’t checked the price difference though.</p>
<p>I will also check AAA site and livesinNJ, thanks for the hotel tip.</p>
<p>I did almost the same trip last spring. I live in the Albany area. I would fly into Syracuse and do Hamilton & Colgate in one day (very doable.) Then drive east (about 4 hours) and stay some where near Wes. Then head to Me on 295. Colby is much further north than either Bates or Bowdoin. You will need at least two days to do all three schools. </p>
<p>Then head back down through Mass on 95 to RI for Brown. Then east, not sure of the interstate but you want to eventually be on I84 to Vassar and Bard. Then north on 87 to the Northway to Vermont (depending on where he is in Vermont.) </p>
<p>While it looks like it’s easy to get from Maine to Vermont it’s not as there are no interstates and in March the weather can still be lousy to drive on back roads through mountains. You really have to go back down to the Mass Pike to either 91 or 87 (NYS Thruway) </p>
<p>Thanks so much BUandBC82… I just ordered it… I had been on amazon many times looking for a book like this but I could never find it. I love that it has restaurants and hotels listed that are close to the campuses.</p>
<p>Oh ya, That was one of my concerns emilybee… the weather. I’m thinking of just skipping the Maine schools for now… it would make the trip a little easier and my DS can only stand so many of the info sessions and tours before he gets sick of them.</p>
<p>We did a similar trip last year. We visited Bates, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Amherst, Wesleyan, Vassar, and Tufts. We flew in and out of Boston because that’s where we found the cheapest fares. Drove up to Maine first, then over to Vermont (a 6-hour trip made longer because it was raining the whole time), then down to Amherst and Wes, then Vassar and last of all Tufts when we were back in the Boston area.</p>
<p>The schedule was determined mostly by the availability of campus tours and info sessions. We were interested in Brown but skipped it because it was on spring break. My S wanted to visit only one college on each day so he would have time to attend classes and talk to students, and that turned out to be a good approach. I drove each afternoon/evening to get to the next place.</p>
<p>If you’d like details about where we stayed, feel free to PM me. I will give a big recommendation to a place near Middlebury: the Willow Lotus Bed and Breakfast. It was just wonderful. We arrived much later than we expected because of the rain, a traffic ticket, and getting a bit lost despite the GPS. We were very tired when we arrived, but our host took wonderful care of us. Our room was large, cozy, and warm and had good wi-fi. A side table had a tray of homemade chocolate chip cookies along with a thermos of hot water and a selection of teas and hot chocolate. Before sending us to bed, our host asked us to choose whatever we wanted for our hot breakfast the next morning. I wished I could just stay there instead of going on with the college touring…</p>
<p>“Oh ya, That was one of my concerns emilybee… the weather. I’m thinking of just skipping the Maine schools for now… it would make the trip a little easier and my DS can only stand so many of the info sessions and tours before he gets sick of them.” </p>
<p>Skipping the Me schools would make it much easier. We did Bowdoin on the way home from a weekend in Booth Bay the summer before DS junior year and didn’t do Bates until this fall. </p>
<p>One thing about doing a week long thing is that the kids do get burned out by the end. We did six schools in one week and by school 4 DS was very cranky.</p>
<p>I have only one suggestion…do any driving the night before you plan to visit a school so that you can get a good night’s sleep and are close to the college d’jour in the morning. </p>
<p>I would also suggest flying in and out of Boston although you could look at flying into Providence or Manchester NH. Both have Southwest service if SW flies into your neck of the woods. </p>
<p>Remember that Orbitz no longer has American Airlines on its list of airlines and I don’t believe the have Southwest either.</p>
<p>"We that live on the east coast don’t call it ‘back East’ ". Interesting. I grew up in NY and moved to CO when the kids were little. We go “back East” every year, to NY, Cape Cod, etc. But for us it really is “back” … toward family ;)</p>
<p>We also got the cheapest tickets flying into Boston. Not sure where you are in CA, Jet Blue flies to both Boston and NY.</p>
<p>We wound up taking the train from Logan to Providence and renting the car in Providence. It was far cheaper than renting in Boston.</p>
<p>We did Vassar and Bard in a day driving up from NYC. It’s doable but long. Also Bard isn’t where the GPS says it should be so make sure you call and get directions.</p>
<p>Some schools have guest houses where you can stay on or near campus. I’d bet Vassar has one, not sure about the others.</p>
<p>Your trip is very doable. Schools are easy to get to, weather permitting. We did a NE college tour over spring break. Had some weather issues at WIlliams (-4 degrees was a bit much…) but roads were fine. Another thought for your flight in/out is White Plains Airport. It now has a lot of commercial flights and rental cares ar very cheap there. Have fun!</p>
<p>I think it’s possible to see all these schools in a week, but it’s a bit of a challenge. It’s often possible to see two in a day, one morning and one afternoon, if they’re relatively close. You’ll have to check the individual schools’ websites to see when tours and info sessions are offered, but as an initial cut, I’d try to do them in pairs, as follows:</p>
<p>Colgate-Hamilton (30 minutes apart per google maps)
Bard-Vassar (38 minutes apart)
Wesleyan-Brown (1 hr 36 minutes)
Bowdoin-Bates (33 min) or Bowdoin-Colby (54 min) (pick 'em)
Middlebury</p>
<p>Middlebury’s the outlier; it’s not that close to anything (about 5 hours from the Maine schools, 4 hours from Hamilton, 4 hours from Wesleyan). But if you’re willing to do some late afternoon/evening driving, you could make the trip in the order I indicated, or the reverse; or perhaps better, start with the Maine schools, then Middlebury, then Hamilton/Colgate, then back east to Wesleyan and Brown. On this last suggestion, Boston makes sense as your hub; fly in one weekend, rent a car, head for Maine, then Middlebury, then Hamilton & Colgate, then Bard & Vassar, then Wes & Brown, then back to Boston.</p>
<p>Or you could fly into Bradley Airport (Hartford-Springfield), head up to Middlebury (a little over 3 hours), then either Hamilton-Colgate before heading east; or Middlebury to the Maine schools before heading south & west, to Brown-Wesleyan, Vassar-Bard, Hamilton-Colgate. However you do it, it’s kind of an awkward circle, but you want to end up relatively near where you start to make r/t airfare and car rental return (without one-way charges) the easiest. That seems like it’s either Boston Logan or Hartford-Springfield Bradley for a major airport with lots of service.</p>
<p>BC, those are good suggestions but everyone is forgetting the OP has to drop her son off in Vermont (I’m assuming Burlington) at the end of the trip.</p>
<p>Is the Burlington son just “along for the ride”? If so, I would suggest he take a bus or train from someplace to Burlington. Burlington is NOT on the way to anything on this list of colleges.</p>