A Road Trip to New England's Fall Color

Can a season of the year have its own natural habitat? As calendars flip to these last few months, leaves turn, gourds ripen and footballs fly all over the map. But there’s no doubt that one part of the country, above all, stakes a special claim to autumn.

Fall in New England: Can it be topped? Hills become rusty kaleidoscopes running to the horizon. Classic towns warm up with festivals celebrating craft traditions, creative community, giant pumpkins and beer. Bright leaves drift over misty backroads. For any traveler seeking fall’s essence, this history-laden corner of the map is the ideal—maybe ultimate—terrain.

Among infinite possible starting points, consider Stonington, Maine, out on Deer Island, part of Maine’s coastal maze of islands and inlets. The town, with its mansard roofs and shimmery bay view, conveys a far-flung feeling, a continent’s-edge sense of land life mingling with ocean. In our most lobster-centric state, this is the largest lobster port. And while Maine’s roadside shacks make lobster rolls synonymous with summer, the actual harvest season peaks from October through December. Check in with Stonington’s Lobster Co-op, owned by fishermen, for a daily gauge on what’s coming in.

Beyond town, Deer Isle itself is a dreamy quilt of picturesque roads sheltering artisans, artists, growers and gatherers of all sorts. “We forage a lot from the surrounding landscape,” Devin Finigan, the chef at the acclaimed Goose Cove restaurant Aragosta, told Wildsam recently. “The beach and the dunes are full of ingredients. I teach my staff and my daughters how to identify and gather them all. It’s a special part of what we do. “It’s not just about the food: The fishermen, the farmers—they’re all part of the Aragosta ecosystem. My sourcing is deeply local. Each year begins with ordering pottery from local artisans. Then there are the fishermen, scallop farmers, lobstermen and multiple local farms for produce.”

Southward, the Maine Coast supplies one of the nation’s great drives, as Highway 1 wriggles through towns like Rockland and Freeport, through the little/big city of Portland and finally across the state line to New Hampshire. A hard right turn inland and northward dials up the autumnal color wheel; this state is a sea of green in summer, but the maples, birches and beeches show what they’re really all about come fall. The Kancamagus Highway crosses the White Mountains between Lincoln and Conway, crossing paths with many hikes and byways to more secluded overlooks. The region’s classics, however, should not be overlooked. A hike up Franconia Notch (or, to get more serious, Franconia Ridge) justifies the semimandatory stop at Polly’s Pancake Parlor, a maple-syrup stronghold that goes back eight decades.

In Southern Vermont, sugar and red maples ignite first, washing the hillsides in scarlet, crimson, and orange sherbet, while the birches—yellow, paper birch, beech and aspen—do their work with sprays of gold. Oaks are more prevalent here, too, with leaves deepening to russet, burgundy and bronze. Elevation shapes the spectacle. Along the southern spine of the Green Mountains, spruce and fir rise dark against fiery hardwoods; down in the valleys, deciduous trees dominate entire hillsides with saturated color.

To experience this season at its most cinematic, grab a go-bag of apple cider donuts from Dutton Farmstand and set out from Manchester. Climb the Mount Equinox Skyline Drive, a winding ascent that rewards with sweeping views across the Taconic and Green mountains, a bird’s-eye panorama of ridges rolling away beneath a patchwork of sunset hues. From there, continue through Bennington and make your way to Route 9, the Molly Stark Byway, stopping at Hogback Mountain for views of forested ridges. Keep following the road toward Wilmington, a quintessential Vermont village where you’ll find treasures at Bartleby’s and West End books (and can fuel up at quaint 1a Coffee Roasters).

For a wilder encounter, venture north of Wilmington to Somerset Reservoir—a vast expanse of water encircled by forest—where Stratton Mountain rises in the distance. Here, the crowds and steepled villages recede, replaced by quiet woods and open water. On a still day, the surrounding maples, birches, beeches and oaks are mirrored across the reservoir’s glassy surface. Seen from a canoe or kayak, with forest unfolding in every direction, it’s incandescent.