stravels

Leaving from Las Vegas about Aug 9th and need to be in San Diego on the 15th. Looking for mileage run to the New England area. Any suggestions for locations and airports (cheap/most United EQMs)? Middle-age woman (possibly two of us) who wants to shop (outlets/good value), visit national parks/historic areas, eat seafood, etc. Suggestions welcome. Thanks!

violist

The 9th to 15th doesn't sound that much like a mileage run.

You'll get the most miles going into PWM, from which you can get (via taxi)
to downtown Portland, which has become, much to my shock and delight,
a quite happening city. The waterfront has some nice seafood, and there
are a few really serious restaurants if you're into that. Shopping is said to
be better than it used to be, but I'm not a shopper so wouldn't know.

cordelli

It of course depends how the fares work out, but occasionally there are some very good fares into Providence. You would need to rent a car to do pretty much anything, but there are a couple factory outlet centers in Connecticut not very far from the airport, and you can get some pretty good seafood in Rhode Island (and you could ferry over to the islands too).

I would price out all the different airports United or it's partners fly to in New England (ITA is great for that, pick say Providence or Boston and a radius of 150 or so miles) and see what you come up with.

Don't expect too much too cheap though, summer rates have not been great.

BearX220

The best fares into New England are generally into MHT / Manchester as it's a Southwest city... although PWM and BTV have improved slightly in recent years as they now have JetBlue. From the west coast, MHT used to be half the price of PWM, and they're only 90 minutes apart. All are easier in/out than Boston Logan.

You do need a car to do anything outside the big cities of Boston, Hartford, Providence. There's no train service to speak of north of Boston except for a couple of half-hearted trips to Portland and back, and the bus service, which used to be very good thanks to Vermont Transit and Concord Trailways, has been gutted.

In short I would recommend:

** Revolutionary War history in Boston (Freedom Trail, Faneuil Hall, etc.) and battle sites in suburbs (Lexington, Concord, etc.)

** Seafood on Mass. coast north of Boston (Gloucester, Newburyport, etc.) or coastal Maine; driving the Maine coast north of Brunswick in the summertime. though, is an endurance contest. Too many tourists, not enough road.

** There are a bunch of factory outlets in Freeport, Maine, 2.5 hours north of Boston, surrounding the L.L. Bean flagship store. Bean's is always fun but I don't think the outlets offer such blazing deals.

** Scenery in northern New Hampshire, up through Franconia Notch, is worth the drive. So is the Upper Connecticut River Valley (I-91 along the river, which defines the Vermont-New Hampshire border).

** Burlington, Vermont and Portland, Maine are nice cities.

** Cape Cod and the islands will be crowded and expensive during your dates... probably not worth the hassle.

Analise

Mileage run to Portland, Maine in the middle of the summer.....that's what I would do! :-: Yes, shocking....

stravels

Mahalo for the responses, especially to BearX220.

Have to do more research as ITA search gave Montreal (New England-ish airport) as the cheapest destination from LAS.

Analise: we decided that NYC in August is too hot! Did that last year.

BTW: originating in Honolulu

BearX220

Not so sure about that as BTV is generally choked with Quebecois who've driven south of their border to escape high fares at YUL. Indeed I ran your dates through Sidestep and came up with the following lowest fares on UA/Star Alliance. Avoiding redeyes:

LAS-YUL 9 aug, YUL-SAN 15 Aug: $624 on UA, AC
LAS-MHT 9 Aug, MHT-SAN 15 Aug: $559 on UA
LAS-BTV 9 Aug, BTV-SAN 15 Aug: $457 on UA
LAS-BOS 9 Aug, BOS-SAN 15 Aug: $418 on CO

MHT not the usual front-runner bargain in this case. I'd say anything circa $400-$450 would be a good deal at the height of summer.

You could mix and match obviously by buying one-ways or a multi-city ticket, but beware of rental car one-way surcharges.

Analise

You are so right; NYC is hell in August. It is worse if you go south. I'll never understand tourists who actually come here in the heat of the summer.

ITA thinks YUL is a "New Englandish airport"???

Montreal...great, great city. Definitely go there and if you want to go to Burlington, it's an easy drive. Just word to the wise, when crossing the border into the US, don't do it on Rt 15 because you can lose over an hour just waiting. Get a map (NUVI works too) and get off at the first exit before the US/Canadian border. Take a local road into the US that gets you into Rouses Point, NY. From there you can easily drive into Vermont.