My family just took a trip to the New England area. We wanted to hit up a couple of different places while there. When I mentioned where we were headed, most people nodded their heads when they heard “Boston,” but when I said we were also headed to Rhode Island…I got a lot of “What is in Rhode Island!?”
Well I’m here to tell you all about what we did on our few days there and why you should add this as a stop when you are headed to the Northeast.
- The Cliffwalk- A beautiful coastline trail you can explore. You have natural beauty on one side, and on the other, Gilded Age Mansions. We loved exploring on this walk!
- Newport Mansions- You can tour a few mansions, but we chose to just check out The Breakers Mansion. It was so interesting to see, but we also enjoyed the audio tour. We were given a tip to bring wireless headphones, which was super helpful to get the self-guided audio tour. There was also a scavenger hunt available which was helpful to keep our daughter engaged.
- International Tennis Hall of Fame– we loved getting a chance to check out this museum. It was full of artifacts and tributes to so many of the tennis greats. We learned about the history of the game, but also saw how it has evolved over the years. My daughter loved the scavenger hunt and we appreciated the helpful staff members that shared tidbits of information. The grounds were beautiful and you can actually sign up to play on the grass courts on the property!
- Shopping and dining at Bowen’s Wharf and Thames Street. We popped by Bowen’s Wharf and it seemed to have a lot of great restaurants and some shopping, but it was more on the “tourist” side, so we didn’t stay too long.
- Amazing food- think fresh lobster rolls, clam chowder, and so much more!
- Beaches with beautiful views- we spent one afternoon at “Second” Beach. The beaches were busy, but not overcrowded which made our time so enjoyable!
- Ease of visiting other places-We loved popping over to Connecticut for dinner one evening and even drove by Taylor Swift’s mansion- why not, we were right there! The houses in the area were something out of a movie. I can only imagine how much they are worth…
- There is so much more we didn’t get to check out- sailing, festivals, polo matches, etc.
Now for the logistics:
We flew Southwest to PVD (Providence, Rhode Island). We did have a quick stop in DC on the way as there aren’t any nonstops to PVD, but it was easy.
We stayed at The Pell. This is a JDV by Hyatt property. It’s a small boutique style hotel that is a category 4 with World of Hyatt. You can stay here for around 15k points a night. It was cute and simple, but a perfect base for our trip. It was away from the main “tourist” areas, and had several good restaurants nearby that we enjoyed. We did need a car for this portion of the trip, but many areas are walkable depending on where you stay.
We rented a car while in RI using a part of a credit we had in the bank portal of one of our credit cards. We did keep an eye on the price, and as it got closer to our travel dates, the price went down. It was super easy to cancel (get the credit back) and rebook for the lower price!
Our family really enjoyed our 3 days in Rhode Island. It was a great way to have a mix of scenery and activities that were very different from the city of Boston which was where we headed next on our New England adventure! To see more about this portion of the trip, check out this blog post.
