Hello - new to this wonderful website. My son is a junior in high school in Arizona state. We are starting our college visits He wants to visit some of the colleges in and around Boston area. He is looking into doing ROTC. He also wants to visit the service academies. Is it possible to visit Boston colleges and then fly or drive to Annapolis to visit the Naval academy and then fly back to AZ.
Any suggestion how to plan this visit.
You can fly, drive, or take a train from Boston to Baltimore to get to the Naval academy.
What about Army?
Which service academies does he want to visit? If just Annapolis, I would suggest flying to Boston, and doing your Boston college visit thing. Then fly to Baltimore, and rent a car and drive to Annapolis. Fly back to Arizona from Baltimore. It’s a big airport.
If you fly to Boston and then drive south you can visit the Coast Guard Academy and West Point on your way to the Naval Academy (plus tons of other colleges in between.)
Driving will allow you to see some of the country and the distances you are talking about aren’t overly big. You would want to avoid New York City as it can be quite congested and it sounds like you are not visiting any colleges in the city.
I’d use public transportation around the city of Boston. Driving and then finding a parking spot in Boston can also be a challenge.
Flying, with all the TSA hassles, isn’t that much quicker and you’d still need to rent a car to get anywhere from the airport.
So, my plan would be to fly into Boston; visit the Boston colleges in the city first using public transportation, then rent a car for the rest of the trip.
Unless you want to see other colleges, don’t drive from Boston to Annapolis. It’s long. Enjoy the ease of flying if you can afford it.
We love the train. It is more expensive than a bus. There is also a Bolt but from Boston to Baltimore. But Amtrak is more pleasant and you can see the countryside along the way.
I was also going to suggest the train to Baltimore. The drive along I95 isn’t the greatest in terms of traffic.
Consider flying from Arizona to Newark, NJ. From there, it’s only a 69 miles drive to West Point. The Newark Airport monorail also stops at an Amtrak station where you can catch high speed trains to Boston or Baltimore. There are also frequent nonstop flights between Newark and Boston, Newark and Baltimore, as well as between Boston and Baltimore. You can also take Amtrak from Boston to Baltimore. Annapolis is only 32 miles from Baltimore. You can fly home from Baltimore when you’re done.
I think West Point would at least be worth a visit if you are coming this far. Itinerary suggested in Post #4 would make sense for that . Driving between Boston and Annapolis would also give you some flexibility to adjust your itinerary. Do keep in mind that driving in the northeast will be a slower than in Arizona, even on the interstates.
The service academies have a summer camp that your child may want to look into for the summer before senior year. I think there is a separate thread on service academies on this site, if you haven’t checked it out already.
Four of the five service academies offer a summer leadership seminar for rising seniors. They are six day programs with competitive admissions.
It really depends on whether he only wants to see Boston colleges and the Naval Academy, or some other schools in between and how much you like to drive. It is about a seven hour drive directly from Boston to Annapolis and you would want to time it to avoid bad traffic. It may be faster to fly, but figuring in getting to the airport, returning a rental car, getting another one at the other end, flying may not save you all that much time. How much time do you have for your trip?
If he wants to see the other academies, particularly West Point, then I would fly to Boston, drive down and swing by West Point and continue to Annapolis. You can fly out of Baltimore or from DC if you want to see any schools there.