Hi there- we plan to come to the East Coast from California the last week of March/first week in April.
Travel: Any input or help on where to fly in and out of- can we do it all with trains, buses, and taxis? I really hope to avoid the stress of driving/parking… We will probably need to fly into Boston, since we have tours we want to take of Northeastern and Tufts on 3/29 and 3/30.
Logistics: what order should we visit schools after those two? Any advice is helpful! We can take about a week, and any room for downtime visiting cool places in between would be a wonderful. Otherwise, open…I know we are not the first to do this kind of tour, so your input would be great! Thank You!
Schools on the Visit list:
Northeastern
Tufts
Dartmouth
Brown
Bard
And if time, a side trip to Duke (or if not, this may need to be a separate trip)
I would very highly recommend renting a car, this even though traffic in metropolitan Boston is a challenge. Public transit will easily consume a significant portion of your available time. So visit Northeastern and Tufts on Sunday March 29 (?) and Monday March 30.
I would recommend driving out to Dartmouth the evening of March 30 and staying in Hanover overnight. Visit Dartmouth on the 31st, then drive to Bard late afternoon March 31. You may need to stay overnight an hour or two north of Bard. It’s a long drive. Visit Bard on the April 1. Drive from Bard to Westchester County Airport. Stay overnight near airport. Return rental. Fly from Westchester County to Durham/Raleigh. Rent a car. Visit Duke on April 2. Stay near Durham/Raleigh airport. Fly back to Boston on April 3. Rent a car. Drive to Providence. Visit Brown on April 3. Fly back to California over the April 4/5 weekend.
When we did some east coast tours, we flew into one airport and out of another. It really did not cost very much extra, and we returned rental car at different airport without any extra charge.
We did the New England college tour several times by car. Even with our own car, it was not easy to schedule everything, and I can’t imagine trying to do it with public transportation!
Here’s what I did: I went to the web sites for each of the schools and wrote down when tours were available. Some schools offer them on weekends, some don’t; some don’t offer them on certain days, etc. Then I made a “trip” on Google Maps where I entered each destination, and looked at what was the best way to string them into a loop. Google maps and my chart of tour times helped me figure out which ones I could schedule 2 in a day, etc. I was able to plan an itinerary that way, and do some research on TripAdvisor for overnight lodgings and places to eat along the way.
In you fly in and out of Boston and rent a car, you can do your loop Boston>Providence>Bard>Dartmouth or the opposite direction.
Thanks everyone! @fogcity - I saw a post where someone recommended taking Amtrack from Boston to Providence (they said it was a short train ride). Do you think it would make sense to take public transportation around Boston and then Amtrack up to Providence - pick up a car there and do the rest of the trip?
^ Sure, although take a look at the map and you’ll see that adding Brown into the drive to Bard only adds 48 miles to that drive (versus Boston > Bard direct).
Boston > Bard = 185 mi
Boston > Brown > Bard = 218 mi
Whichever you choose, if you need a place to stay the night before you visit Bard, I recommend staying in Great Barrington. it’s a great little town with restaurants and a few places to stay. We like the Briarcliff Motel http://thebriarcliffmotel.com/
It’s about 2 1/4 hours from Brown to Great Barrington, so you could easily do a thorough Brown tour and drive to your hotel that night, get up and do the 9 am Bard tour the next morning and drive to Dartmouth. It’s about 3 1/2 hours from Bard to Dartmouth in good weather. The drive up the Pioneer Valley, past the cool little city of Northampton, is beautiful! (And if your child is at all interested in Amherst College, Smith or Mount Holyoke or Hampshire, they’re all right there.) And you get to go through Brattleboro, too, which is another neat, scenic little city with good restaurants.
On the other hand, you could leave from Boston early in the morning, like 6 am, and drive straight to Bard for the 10 am tour and then north on 91 towards Dartmouth.
Dartmouth > Boston is a bit over 2 hours in good weather (ie if its not snowing like it has been every other day!!!)
@staceyneil , Thanks for the additional great information! I like all your suggestions on hotels and places to see. I’ve been checking out google maps and tripadvisor this morning, and there are so many choices! Having advice from someone who is familiar with the area is really helpful! Thank you!
I can help with the Boston part of this We flew in without a car and stayed at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge right on the Charles River. The very cool part is that they had a free shuttle to all colleges (except Tufts…but they brought us halfway). In general, Northeastern & BU are on one side of the river, and Harvard & Tufts are on the other, with Tufts actually being out in Medford. D and i had a great weekend.
While there is decent public transportation from Boston to downtown Providence, you’ll do better driving. Renting a car in downtown Providence will take time. The train schedules are unlikely to match your exact schedule. You’ll be constantly worried about missing this train or that. Avoid driving in rush hour and you’ll do fine.
We flew in without a car and stayed at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge right on the Charles River. The very cool part is that they had a free shuttle to all colleges (except Tufts…but they brought us halfway). In general, Northeastern & BU are on one side of the river, and Harvard & Tufts are on the other, with Tufts actually being out in Medford. D and i had a great weekend.