Best of New Hampshire

Granite, notches, and one very serious mountain. Seven places that cover what New Hampshire actually is: the White Mountains and their passes, a lake with more than 250 islands, a bare summit standing alone in the southwest, and eighteen miles of coast anchored by a working 1600s port.

7 places · New Hampshire

More to explore

⛰️ Mountains

Kancamagus Highway

Lincoln, NH · White Mountains, New Hampshire

NH 112 runs about 34 miles between Lincoln and Conway with no gas, no lodging, and no billboards, which is the point. It climbs to a height of land at 2,855 feet on Kancamagus Pass, then drops east along the Swift River. The stops are roadside: Sabbaday Falls, a short walk on graded gravel to a cascade stepped through a flume; Rocky Gorge, where the Swift squeezes through granite under a footbridge; and Lower Falls, the swimming ledges people use in July. Overlooks near the pass open onto the Pemigewasset Wilderness with nothing built in sight. At the west end, Lincoln Woods sends a suspension bridge over the Pemi onto a flat old railroad grade. Color peaks the first two weeks of October and the lots fill by mid morning, so start before 9. The road is plowed all winter; trailhead parking needs a Forest Service pass, and the Sabbaday path is a warm season walk.

🌊 Lakes & rivers

Lake Winnipesaukee

Laconia, NH · Lakes Region, New Hampshire

New Hampshire's largest lake runs about 21 miles long, covers 69 square miles, and holds at least 258 islands. Most first visits land at Weirs Beach in Laconia, where a 1,300-foot boardwalk rebuilt after the 2008 floods fronts the water and arcades, bumper cars, and fried dough stack up across Lakeside Avenue. The M/S Mount Washington docks mid-boardwalk for a narrated scenic loop of roughly two and a half hours, calling at Wolfeboro, Meredith, Center Harbor, and Alton Bay on rotating days. On the east shore, Wolfeboro has billed itself America's oldest summer resort since Governor John Wentworth built his lake estate there in the 1760s, and its Main Street runs quieter than the Weirs. Cruises sail May into October; July and August fill the lots, the weeks after Labor Day are the sweet spot, and lakeside foliage peaks in early to mid October. Endicott Rock Park parking is metered hourly in season.

⛰️ Mountains

Mount Monadnock

Jaffrey, NH · Monadnock Region, Southwest New Hampshire

Monadnock stands alone. Nothing within thirty miles comes close to its 3,165 feet, so the bare rock summit gives a full 360: Vermont's Green Mountains, the Berkshires, and on a clear day the Boston skyline southeast. Geologists borrowed the name for exactly that reason, a lone hill left standing after the softer rock around it wore away. The top is treeless for a messier reason. Settlers burned the slopes in the early 1800s, once for pasture and again to smoke out wolves, and the topsoil never returned. No road or lift goes to the top; every route is on foot. White Dot from park headquarters on Poole Road is the short, steep way, roughly two miles and about 1,750 feet of gain. White Arrow off the Old Toll Road is gentler and quieter. Day use runs $15 per vehicle; reserve parking online, because fall Saturdays sell out. Ice holds on the upper ledges into spring, and pets are never allowed.

🎡 Attractions

Portsmouth

Portsmouth, NH · Seacoast, New Hampshire

Portsmouth packs a working port, a 1600s street plan and a dense restaurant row into a downtown you can cross on foot in fifteen minutes. Roughly 22,000 people live here on the Piscataqua River, where the tide runs hard enough that the Moran tugs earn their keep turning ships toward the naval shipyard. Market Square is the hinge, with the Music Hall a block off, Prescott Park along the water, and brick sidewalks that buckle in interesting ways. Strawbery Banke fills close to ten acres of the old Puddle Dock neighborhood with more than 30 buildings on their original foundations, furnished to eras from the 1690s to the 1950s. New Hampshire's ocean coast runs under 20 miles, so for open shoreline, drive a few miles south to Odiorne Point State Park in Rye, where WWII bunkers sit above tide pools. The historic houses close for winter, and downtown garages fill by late morning in summer and October.

⛰️ Mountains

Crawford Notch State Park

Hart's Location, NH · White Mountains, New Hampshire

US 302 runs the floor of a U-shaped pass the Saco spent millennia carving, Webster Cliff on one wall, Mount Willard closing the view north. Flume Cascade and Silver Cascade drop right beside the road near the top of the notch, close enough to hear through an open window. The walking is the better part. Arethusa Falls, generally counted the tallest in New Hampshire, is about 3 miles round trip and roughly 850 feet of gain at a grade most kids handle. Mount Willard climbs 1.6 miles from the Crawford Depot area to a ledge framing the entire notch, about 900 feet up for the best view per step in the Whites. No tickets and no timed entry, and it stays calmer than Franconia. Route 302 is a state highway plowed all winter, so the drive holds year round, but the Willey House site and Dry River Campground run late May into late October, and the Arethusa lot fills early on foliage weekends.