5 days spare , where to go (new york based)

On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 10:10:12 GMT in rec.travel.usa-canada, "SWAT"
wrote:

Just realised, yes it will be Memorial Day weekend!! (my travel dates will
be 25th to 30th May) are the roads, hotels restraunts etc a lot busier ? I
have no plans whatsoever so could just keep driving till i find a hotel etc.

not if they are all full, and they will be on what is the
beginning of summer extended weekend.

In article ,
"SWAT" wrote:

Cool, sounds good, i can swap the first 2 days around for sure

Any suggestions about which towns to stay in along the jersey Shore or are
they all pretty much the same ?

Each town along the Jersey Shore is unique in its own way. My favorites
are Ocean City, Wildwood, and Cape May, but at this late date, you might
find it difficult to find a hotel room because the holiday periods book
up well in advance.

Try googling for "Jersey shore" and I am sure you will find a lot of
hits.

On 4/3/2007 10:25 AM SWAT wrote:
"Judy Heuman" wrote in message
...

On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 10:10:12 GMT, "SWAT" wrote:


Just also realised you meant Hershey chocolate! ugggh thats stuff is
awfull!,lol you should try the Cadburys ( from the Uk) its 100 times
better
(not ths Cadburys made under licence by Hershys in the USA!) i always
bring
a bag full of Cadburys for my friends in the US and they cant belive how
much better it tastes!

Oh my -- we're into the great chocolate battle! Well, IMHO, Cadbury's
isn't so good either -- at least, not on the world market! One would
be hard pressed to decide which is better -- French, Swiss, Belgian or
Italian! But, England doesn't rank up there among the best!

One would think when traveling, it's of interest to see what's in the
area where the travel is taking place!

Judy


================================================== =============
Judy Heuman


100% agree with you Judy and ill certainly be visiting the Hershey chocolate
factory tour!
I have to say i didnt in the least find your post ridiculing towards
England!,lol

Heres how its panning out.......

Friday: Leave NY, drive down to Hershey, see the chocolate factory and
surounding area. Drive to Gettysburg and stay overnight.
Saturday: Check out Gettysburg and the surounding area. Drive to and stay
overnight in Lancaster.
Sunday: Check out Lancaster and drive over to Lewers, DE where i see theres
a ferry over to Cape May which looks nice, maybe stay over in Atlantic
city(never been but been to Vegas several times)
Monday: Start heading back towards NY up the New Jersey coastline and maybe
stay in one of the beach towns.
Tuesday: Depending on weather, stay in one of beach towns up jersey
coastline again
Wednesday: Drive back in NY for lunchtime.


Any comments on the above welcome

Cheers





I like your itinerary but you might want to get away from Lancaster,
it's on the edge of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. My suggestion is a few
PA Dutch towns that are more in the heart of the country. Bird-In-Hand
is a great little town as is Blue Ball, and Paradise. If you are a fan
of the movie "witness" starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, and Lukas
Haas you'll want to visit Intercourse. This town was used for many of
the location shots. The General Store is pretty much the way it was in
the movie.

Family style dinners are very popular in this area. With family style,
you get a buffet that comes to your table. Your server will bring
seconds of anything that's been served on the table. I happen to like
the Stoltzfus Family Farm just outside of Intercourse. It's on a working
farm. Also on the grounds is Stoltzfus Meats. It's a shop where you can
buy PA Dutch style sausages, ham loaf, and other cuts of meat.

There's a slightly off-color joke about these towns. I just thought I'd
let you know that because you will probably see it on key chains or hear
it. The cool part about Bird-In-Hand, Blue Ball, Intercourse and
Paradise is that they are all more or less on the way to Philadelphia.

--
____
Brian M. Kochera
"Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
____
View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951

On Apr 3, 10:25 am, "SWAT" wrote:
Heres how its panning out.......

Sorry for the apparent delay: I had submitted a response last week,
but Google ate it (argh).


Friday: Leave NY, drive down toHershey, see the chocolate factory and
surounding area. Drive to Gettysburg and stay overnight.

Be aware that Rt 78 is under construction from near Newark Airport
(east of the Garden State Parkway) out to at least where it splits
with Rt 24. Depending on time of day, etc, you can lose a quick hour
in this 20 mile stretch. If you must go this way, at least get onto
the "Express" lanes, since it is the Local lanes that are currently
undergoing work.

Second, this might become a fairly long day behind the wheel. The
drive's probably going to be 3 hours if you avoid construction &
traffic, from which you have another hour's drive to Gettysburg after
you do the Hershey tour and whatever else: there's two amusement
parks (I thought I recall hearing some interest?), namely HersheyPark
and Dorney / Wildwater Kingdom in this area that may be a
consideration.

Third, did I hear that the proposed dates for this trip were the last
weekend in May? If so, then it is Memorial Day weekend, and the roads
(& hotels) will be crowded. I'd pad the above (and all following)
travel time estimates by at least 25%.

Saturday: Check out Gettysburg and the surounding area. Drive to and stay
overnight in Lancaster.

Its probably been 20 years since I've toured the Gettysburg
battlefields; it can be as long as you would like, but I'd expect that
anyone interested in driving out from NYC is going to spend at least 4
hours. I'll assume that you leave the area after lunch.

Personally, I'd not stop at Lancaster for Saturday night, but get more
miles under my belt in anticipation for the next day's drive. This is
partly a personal choice in that I've spent a lot of time in this PA
Dutch as its where our one family is from...but also because there's
no way to avoid a bad major bottleneck that's between where you're at
and Lewes, DE

On a map, it looks "reasonable" that from Lancaster, your route to
Lewis could be done either by heading through the Wilmington, DE area,
or you could initially take a more southern route and then head east
across the Rt 50 Anapolis, MD drawbridge.

Both are bad bottlenecks.

The Wilmington area one is on Rt 95 near where the NJ/DE Memorial
Bridges come in, out to at least the Christiana Mall exit, where you
can then bail out to get on the Highway 1 (toll road).

The other bottleneck is the Rt 50 Anapolis Drawbridge.

The first choice "sucks less bad" - avoid the Anapolis bridge.


With this route plan then in mind, I'd sleep overnight further east
and south than Lancaster. This way you're fresher for the driving
stress that's likely to follow.

What I'd consider as my personal first choice would be the Chadds
Ford, PA area -- items of interest in this area include the Brandywine
battlefield (yawn), the Brandywine River Museum (Wyeth artwork),
Chaddsford Winery, and Longwood Gardens, plus a moderately short
distance away in Delaware, the Winterthur Museum & Country Estate and
Hagley Museum and powder works (historic DuPonte blackpowder
manufacturing). There's also a wooden covered bridge in this area
that I've yet to find. YMMV if you think that there's enough here to
actually spend an extra day or not.


Sunday: Check out Lancaster and drive over to Lewers, DE where i see theres
a ferry over to Cape May which looks nice, maybe stay over in Atlantic
city(never been but been to Vegas several times)

Lewis. There's an interesting museum in town, a small 'historic'
village, plus some interesting crafty-type shopping. Do make it part
of your plan to have a reservation to put your car on the ferryboat to
Cape May, and don't be surprised by longish waits.

BTW, instead of skipping right over to NJ, consider spending a night
or two a short distance south of Lewis at Rhehoboth, DE. Its a
friendly town and they have a boardwalk with amusements (and a *free*
beach ... you'll understand what I mean once you hit NJ). Make sure
you get some of Dolles caramel popcorn to eat g. A couple of blocks
off the ocean, there's also the Dogfishhead brewery - good local food
& beer.


Monday: Start heading back towards NY up the New Jersey coastline and maybe
stay in one of the beach towns.

Assuming you were at Rhehoboth, this becomes "take ferry to NJ" day.
Instead of making a beeline to Atlantic City, consider checking out
the Victorian B&B's in Cape May, and/or hitting Wildwood as a NJ Shore
Town with boardwalk.


Tuesday: Depending on weather, stay in one of beach towns up jersey
coastline again

Wednesday: Drive back in NY for lunchtime.

Seaside Heights might be worth considering as your northern-ish
overnight stop. They're another typical and decent NJ beach/boardwalk
town and not too long of a drive from NYC.

Any comments on the above welcome

I hope that my delay in not dectecting Google's fail-to-post my prior
writeup wasn't a problem. Overall, I'd make sure to get reservations
for each stop if most of this is going to be during Memorial Day
weekend - traditionally, that weekend is considered to be the official
start of the summer beach season ... and makes it a headache for me to
go visit my parents down along the shore.


-hh

Excellent info below and very much appreciated,
thanks -hh



"-hh" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Apr 3, 10:25 am, "SWAT" wrote:
Heres how its panning out.......

Sorry for the apparent delay: I had submitted a response last week,
but Google ate it (argh).


Friday: Leave NY, drive down toHershey, see the chocolate factory and
surounding area. Drive to Gettysburg and stay overnight.

Be aware that Rt 78 is under construction from near Newark Airport
(east of the Garden State Parkway) out to at least where it splits
with Rt 24. Depending on time of day, etc, you can lose a quick hour
in this 20 mile stretch. If you must go this way, at least get onto
the "Express" lanes, since it is the Local lanes that are currently
undergoing work.

Second, this might become a fairly long day behind the wheel. The
drive's probably going to be 3 hours if you avoid construction &
traffic, from which you have another hour's drive to Gettysburg after
you do the Hershey tour and whatever else: there's two amusement
parks (I thought I recall hearing some interest?), namely HersheyPark
and Dorney / Wildwater Kingdom in this area that may be a
consideration.

Third, did I hear that the proposed dates for this trip were the last
weekend in May? If so, then it is Memorial Day weekend, and the roads
(& hotels) will be crowded. I'd pad the above (and all following)
travel time estimates by at least 25%.

Saturday: Check out Gettysburg and the surounding area. Drive to and stay
overnight in Lancaster.

Its probably been 20 years since I've toured the Gettysburg
battlefields; it can be as long as you would like, but I'd expect that
anyone interested in driving out from NYC is going to spend at least 4
hours. I'll assume that you leave the area after lunch.

Personally, I'd not stop at Lancaster for Saturday night, but get more
miles under my belt in anticipation for the next day's drive. This is
partly a personal choice in that I've spent a lot of time in this PA
Dutch as its where our one family is from...but also because there's
no way to avoid a bad major bottleneck that's between where you're at
and Lewes, DE

On a map, it looks "reasonable" that from Lancaster, your route to
Lewis could be done either by heading through the Wilmington, DE area,
or you could initially take a more southern route and then head east
across the Rt 50 Anapolis, MD drawbridge.

Both are bad bottlenecks.

The Wilmington area one is on Rt 95 near where the NJ/DE Memorial
Bridges come in, out to at least the Christiana Mall exit, where you
can then bail out to get on the Highway 1 (toll road).

The other bottleneck is the Rt 50 Anapolis Drawbridge.

The first choice "sucks less bad" - avoid the Anapolis bridge.


With this route plan then in mind, I'd sleep overnight further east
and south than Lancaster. This way you're fresher for the driving
stress that's likely to follow.

What I'd consider as my personal first choice would be the Chadds
Ford, PA area -- items of interest in this area include the Brandywine
battlefield (yawn), the Brandywine River Museum (Wyeth artwork),
Chaddsford Winery, and Longwood Gardens, plus a moderately short
distance away in Delaware, the Winterthur Museum & Country Estate and
Hagley Museum and powder works (historic DuPonte blackpowder
manufacturing). There's also a wooden covered bridge in this area
that I've yet to find. YMMV if you think that there's enough here to
actually spend an extra day or not.


Sunday: Check out Lancaster and drive over to Lewers, DE where i see
theres
a ferry over to Cape May which looks nice, maybe stay over in Atlantic
city(never been but been to Vegas several times)

Lewis. There's an interesting museum in town, a small 'historic'
village, plus some interesting crafty-type shopping. Do make it part
of your plan to have a reservation to put your car on the ferryboat to
Cape May, and don't be surprised by longish waits.

BTW, instead of skipping right over to NJ, consider spending a night
or two a short distance south of Lewis at Rhehoboth, DE. Its a
friendly town and they have a boardwalk with amusements (and a *free*
beach ... you'll understand what I mean once you hit NJ). Make sure
you get some of Dolles caramel popcorn to eat g. A couple of blocks
off the ocean, there's also the Dogfishhead brewery - good local food
& beer.


Monday: Start heading back towards NY up the New Jersey coastline and
maybe
stay in one of the beach towns.

Assuming you were at Rhehoboth, this becomes "take ferry to NJ" day.
Instead of making a beeline to Atlantic City, consider checking out
the Victorian B&B's in Cape May, and/or hitting Wildwood as a NJ Shore
Town with boardwalk.


Tuesday: Depending on weather, stay in one of beach towns up jersey
coastline again

Wednesday: Drive back in NY for lunchtime.

Seaside Heights might be worth considering as your northern-ish
overnight stop. They're another typical and decent NJ beach/boardwalk
town and not too long of a drive from NYC.

Any comments on the above welcome

I hope that my delay in not dectecting Google's fail-to-post my prior
writeup wasn't a problem. Overall, I'd make sure to get reservations
for each stop if most of this is going to be during Memorial Day
weekend - traditionally, that weekend is considered to be the official
start of the summer beach season ... and makes it a headache for me to
go visit my parents down along the shore.


-hh