<p>My wife and I will be taking our (9th grade) daughter up to school in New Hampshire Labor Day weekend and will be arriving a couple of days early and were looking for things to do in the general area. It is a long drive up, so we thought it might be better to stay a couple of days instead of 2 long back to back road drives.</p>
<p>We already have reservations in Manchester (a starting point) and were looking for interesting things to fill in a couple of days for the 3 of us. Not looking to spend lots of money, nor spend a lot of time sitting around.</p>
<p>Any suggestions???</p>
<p>Shucks, fellow, I would hit up the nice parks!</p>
<p>I lived in New Hampshire for like 10 years. Um..Manchester..you could hit The Mall of New Hampshire, there are lots of museums, etc. Also, you could go to Lake Winnapasaukee.</p>
<p>If you come to the Seacoast area, in Portsmouth, there is a beautiful park called Prescott Park. They do an outdoor theater-this summer it was Oliver. I don't think it will still be going on Labor Day weekend, but they offer other things during the weekend days and evenings. They have a website to check calendar. It is located near a historic area called Strawberry Banke-there are homes from different eras in Portsmouth history.
The beaches are lovely also. I would stay clear of the main Hampton Beach-it is very touristy-traffic- etc, but the north beaches in area are nice.<br>
From Macnchester area-the seacoast is less than an hour drive, mountains and lakes about 1 1/2 hours. Not sure if you are into hiking, but there are lots of trails and smaller hikes.
Enjoy your trip.</p>
<p>i know at Attittash Ski Resort they have the alpine slide in the summer, which is good for kids but I don't know about adults. Various other ski resorts will offer mountain biking and stuff like that. Also plenty of mountains to hike, varying in difficulty. For younger kids there's Santa's Village, Story Land, Six Gun City and Clark's Trading Post, which are themed places with rides, characters, etc.. If you're into water sports, certain lakes (Lake Ossippee comes to mind)offer jetski and boat rentals at their marinas that you can take out for the day. As you may be able to tell, I spent many a summer as a kid in NH. Definitely take advantage of the time you have there, since there's plenty to do.</p>
<p>I used to live in Boston, and we would take drives and long weekends into New Hampshire. There were 3 areas we liked:
1. the White Mountains. So much to do here, but it might be too far away.
2. the lakes area. Many lovely lakes with Winnepasaki (sp?) being the largest with the most activities.
3. the seacoast -- including southern Maine.<br>
Enjoy!</p>
<p>There are plenty of movie theatres and yes, the mall of New Hampshire is a cool place. A lot of people in New Hampshire, I think, find things to do outdoors. There are plenty of Wendy's, McDonalds&Burger Kings up in that area... </p>
<p>This site might help:
<a href="http://www.hellomanchester.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.hellomanchester.com/</a></p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Go to Lake Winnipesaukee and check out the towns around the lake (Meredith, Wolfeboro, Weirs Beach, Center Harbor, etc), and get out onto the lake if possible.
Also drive up the Mount Washington Auto Road and hike around up there a bit... though dress warm as it'll be a bit cold by Labor Day up there!</p>
<p>I went to Lincoln a couple of years ago with my friends and we had some wonderful time exploring its nature. We went mountain biking where the famous Old Man of the Mountain was used to be, hiking, hanging out at the rivers, canoeing, and kayaking. The many lofty mountains and the great expanse of forests offer beautiful sceneries and wildlife exploration. By the way, do go out at night to look up at the stars because the sky up there is pitch black. You can easily make out the milky way and auroras sometimes appear.</p>
<p>Milky way is a good candy bar. sometimes a bit too chocolaty</p>