Not IN BED: New England

Words & Images by David Prior

It might sound strange for a travel writer to say but sometimes the best holidays are the ones that are predictable, a tradition. The holidays to the place you went every summer, the ones where the meals are almost rituals, game nights, daily routines, the place where you see familiar faces growing older year after year. Its those kind of simple beach holidays from childhood that somehow seemed to last forever. Remember those? I barely did until I traveled to New England this year with friends. When the heat rises New Yorkers flee like rats from a ship. Some 'holiday' in the over wrought and scene driven Hamptons but others seeking a real respite go further to places they have visited sometimes for decades. All along the coast of New England there are extraordinary towns. It's a gentler side of the US that we rarely see and one that harks back to another era. It was the first time I had traveled there, particularly Maine, an extraordinarily beautiful State that in the summer months melts to reveal a movie set America. Wooden pre-civil war houses, lobsters for a dollar, wild blue berries in the woodland, cold water lakes, farmstands on the highways and flags fluttering above the porch. There isn't just one destination to visit or a particular town but each and everyone has its charms. Next year I am going to do the same and rent a tumble down farmhouse. Traditions begin when you decide to do something again.