Above, New Hampshire’s historic, 120-year-old Omni Mount Washington Hotel and Resort in Bretton Woods, and from left to right below, a historic home at Portsmouth’s Strawbery Banke, a mom and dad enjoying the best family activity since the earth cooled at North Conway’s Mount Cranmore, a cairn on a quiet morning at Hampton Beach, and tugboats escorting the USS New Hampshire past New Castle, en route to its commissioning at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
Welcome to New Hampshire.
If there is anything other than palm trees missing here, for families, couples, skiers, surfers, hikers, beach-bums, deep-sea fishermen, theater-goers, whale-watchers, history lovers, or adventurers young or old, honestly, we can’t think of a single thing.
Come visit New Hampshire and see for yourself.
The Maritime Region
The Lakes Region
The White Mountains Region
Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Region
The Currier & Ives Region
The Capitol Region
New Hampshire’s Top Five Tourism Attractions
Shorcuts to Popular Local Tourism Destinations
New Hampshire’s Top Ten Ski Resorts
When our Atlantic beaches close, and autumn gives way to winter, New Hampshire, which trails only Alaska in annual snowfall, comes alive with the best downhill skiing and snowboarding east of the Mississippi. Explore New Hampshire’s top ski resort options here.
Historic Portsmouth, founded in 1623, was already 166 years old when President George Washington visited New Hampshire’s only seaport in 1789. Portsmouth has a busy working harbor, and its walkable downtown is perhaps best known for its well-preserved colonial architecture and for shopping and harborside dining on the decks, at left, overlooking its iconic tugboats. Indeed, Portsmouth has more seats in its restaurants than the roughly 25,000 residents who live there. (Read More)
To View the Official Seacoast Region Visitor’s Guide, Click Here.
Hampton Beach
Hampton Beach is New Hampshire’s most popular family vacation destination (at right, on a blustery September afternoon), not just because of its mile and a half by 150 yards of sand beach (groomed daily) but also because of its proximity to restaurants, snack bars, arcades, gift shops, free summer concerts nightly at the bandshell, its Wednesday fireworks other attractions. (Read More)
To View the Official Seacoast Region Visitor’s Guide,
Click Here.
Isles of Shoals
Historic homes on Star Island on the Isles of Shoals, a cluster of nine small islands, four in New Hampshire and five in Maine, six miles off the coast of Rye, New Hampshire, and originally named “Smith’s Isles” by the British explorer, Captain John Smith in 1614. Some of the homes here are among the oldest structures in New England, several of which date to the early 1600s. (Read More)
Rye and Rye Harbor
Rye is said to be the first settlement in New Hampshire, probably visited by French explorer and cartographer, Samuel de Champlain in 1605. Rye is an affluent, seaside, bedroom community of about 5,000 residents stretching between the Hamptons and Portsmouth, and is perhaps best known for its sandy beaches (three of which are State Parks) and for Rye Harbor, pictured at right, the birthplace of fluffy chowder. (Read More)))
To View the Official Seacoast Region Visitor’s Guide, Click Here.
New Castle
New Castle is the smallest town in New Hampshire, entirely contained on an island surrounded by saltwater at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, a two-minute drive from Portsmouth via a bridge and a causeway. New Castle is the home of the historic Wentworth by the Sea Hotel (at left) and is well known for its lovely beach, its picturesque lighthouse, and its cluster of quaint, colonial homes, some dating almost to the time of its settling in 1623. (Read More)
Hanover
Hanover is an historic and picturesque town of about 12,000 residents, chartered in 1761 along the east bank of the Connecticut River (which separates New Hampshire from the State of Vermont). Hanover may be best known as the home of Dartmouth College, at right, and the resources, including the Hood Museum of Art the Hopkins Center performing arts facility in the center of town, and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center that the College offers its residents and visitors. (Read More)
To view the official Dartmouth/Lake Sunapee Tourist Guide, click here.
White Mountains
New Hampshire’s White Mountains are the home of the best skiing east of the Mississippi, including Cannon Mountain, Loon Mountain and Waterville Valley along Interstate 93, as well as Attitash, Cranmore, Wildcat and Bretton Woods in the Mount Washington Valley, all with more than 2,000 feet of vertical drop, and not least, the august Mount Washington Hotel and Resort at the base of Mount Washington, at left.
Click here to view the Official White Mountains Visitor’s Guide.
The Lakes Region
The Lakes Region of New Hampshire, home to over 273 lakes and ponds, is the self-proclaimed “Oldest Summer Resort in America”. The Lakes Region is more than just a summertime destination, of course, with breathtaking scenery in the fall, and the lovely hotels in Wolfeboro, and Meredith, the principal lakeside towns of the region, are quaint, quiet, off-mountain refuges for snowmobilers and skiers to unwind after a day on one of the major, easily drivable snowmobile trails and ski resorts nearby. Indeed, Meredith’s rustic yet refined Church Landing hotel (a view of an autumn sunrise over Meredith Bay from one of its guestroom balconies is pictured at right), is considered one of the top five resort properties in the state.
Read more about the Lakes Region here.
Manchester is the most populous city, and the largest convention, sports, and entertainment destination in New Hampshire, the home to the Hampshire Fisher Cats minor league baseball team and the Manchester Monarchs ECHL hockey team, and a number of historic sites. The Currier Museum of Art, Manchester’s principal tourist attraction, has a renowned collection of American and European art including works by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, O’Keeffe, Calder, Sargent and Andrew Wyeth, as well as two house museums designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. (Read More)
Click here to view the official Merrimack Valley Visitors Guide.
Keene and Peterborough
The Monadnock Region, also known as the Currier and Ives corner of New Hampshire, encompassing the small towns of Keene, Dublin, and Peterborough, is characterized by rolling hills, quaint villages, and rustic farmsteads, and one significant mountain. Keene (pictured at right), is a small, walkable, nearly 300-year-old city, rich in classic New England architecture and natural scenery; Peterborough is the regional arts and culture hub, where Thornton Wilder, Studs Terkel, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein among others, wrote and composed while in residence at the venerable MacDowell Colony. Mount Monadnock is the most climbed mountain in the world.
Click here to view the Monadnock Region Visitors Guide.
Concord
Historic Concord is the state capital and New Hampshire’s second largest city. New Hampshire’s neo-classical capitol (pictured at left) is the oldest in the nation in which the state’s legislative branches meet in their original chambers. Concord has a walkable downtown radiating from its golden-domed statehouse, with shops, restaurants, and bars, and several notable museums including the Concord History Museum and the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, a science and space museum (a short drive from the Statehouse) dedicated to the memory of Christa McAuliffe, the Concord High School teacher who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and New Hampshire native Alan Shepard, the first American in space.
Click here for a downloadable Concord Visitors Guide.
Exeter
Discover history, culture, and New England charm in Exeter, New Hampshire, a walkable, quintessentially New England town of about 15,000, with an apocryphal claim to be the birthplace of the Republican Party. Exeter is the home of the American Independence Museum and of Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the oldest and most prestigious secondary schools in the United States. (MAP) Exeter is an easy day-trip from Boston, about an hour by car, or a one-stop ride on AMTRAK from Boston’s North Station, and about a 25-minute drive from Portsmouth.
Click Here for an Exeter Area Community Guide.
Salem
Salem is a vibrant tax-free destination just over the Massachusetts border, and an easy drive from most locations in New Hampshire. Salem’s historic Canobie Lake Park, picturd at left, is one of New Hampshire’s five top tourist attractions, but Salem may be best known today for shopping and dining options and outdoor events and deluxe accommodations at Tuscan Village, In short, Salem is an optimal destination for families, shoppers and diners alike, offering classic New England charm, deluxe accommodations and famously fine dining.