Stay and Play
Planning a trip with extended family couldn’t be easier when you choose a New England resort as your home away from home. The region’s top destinations cater to groups large and small with activities for all ages and a range of lodging options to suit varying needs and budgets. And when you and your family choose to stay at one of these expansive properties—with helpful staff and amenities galore—you’ll have so many opportunities to play, dine, and discover things about each other that you never knew before. The result? Memories that kids will cherish even after they grow up to be parents and grandparents themselves.
BEACH RESORTS
Some of New England’s grandest and family-friendly beach resorts can be found in Massachusetts, on Cape Cod and the nearby islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. At Ocean Edge Resort & Golf Club in Brewster, a private beach and 18-hole golf course are just the start when it comes to options for indoor and outdoor fun. Rent kayaks or stand-up paddleboards, take a dip in one of five pools, or play pickleball, a racquet sport for the whole family. On Martha’s Vineyard, meanwhile, Winnetu Oceanside Resort is a seasonal favorite where supervised programs can keep kids busy all morning, allowing parents and grandparents to enjoy spa treatments, tennis matches, and water taxi trips to Edgartown for shopping. The traditional New England clambakes here are an unforgettable experience for the whole clan.
Connecticut has beach resorts with family appeal, too, such as Water’s Edge Resort & Spa in Westbrook, known for its all-you-can-eat Sunday brunches including a raw bar with a hand-carved ice sculpture. In addition to a private beach, the year-round property has indoor and outdoor pools, tennis courts, and frequent live entertainment.
If a lakefront beach appeals to your family, Vermont has a classic option right on Lake Champlain: Basin Harbor, a pet-friendly, all-cottage resort. In addition to swimming, the lake affords recreational activities that range from tame—like paddleboat pedaling and narrated shipwreck-viewing cruises—to wild, like wakesurfing, tubing, and water skiing.
SKI RESORTS
You want to ski. And your kids love to snowboard, or they’re game to learn. But what will the non-skiers in your group do while you’re on the slopes? Stay at one of New Hampshire’s major ski resorts, and you may actually feel pangs of jealousy when you meet up for dinner and compare notes on your day. At the state’s largest ski area, Bretton Woods, those who aren’t keen on downhill skiing can go Nordic skiing or snowshoeing or try an activity that requires even less exertion, like snow tubing and fat biking. Accommodations here run the gamut from motel rooms to cozy townhomes to multi-room suites at the legendary Omni Mount Washington Resort, where you can opt to forget it’s winter entirely by booking a day at the spa.
South of Bretton Woods but still in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, you’ll find a similarly diverse line-up of accommodations and activities at Loon Mountain Resort in Lincoln. New England Disabled Sports, headquartered at both Loon and Bretton Woods, offers adaptive sports instruction for children and adults with physical and cognitive disabilities, making alpine and Nordic skiing, as well as snowboarding and snowshoeing, accessible to those who might not otherwise have an opportunity to participate.
In Vermont, big ski areas such as Killington Ski Resort and Stowe Mountain Resort offer the same multifaceted appeal for multigenerational groups. At Killington, skiing and snowboarding are supplemented with snowshoeing and snowmobiling tours and a lift-serviced, multi-lane snow tubing hill, while a ride in an enclosed gondola, floating high above the winter scenery, is an activity all ages can share. At Stowe, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, and ice skating on an outdoor rink beneath strings of lights are among the alternatives to downhilling. Adaptive skiing and riding lessons can be arranged in advance for those with disabilities.
ENTERTAINMENT RESORTS
Connecticut is home to New England’s two largest casino resorts, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, and while they offer some of the best nightlife and round-the-clock entertainment in New England, they both rank high as family-friendly destinations. The two resorts have a range of on-site accommodations and casual-to-fine dining, including celebrity-chef restaurants like Guy Fieri’s Foxwoods Kitchen & Bar.
At Mohegan Sun, while grownups try their luck at the casino, children from six weeks to 12 years old stay happy, well-fed, and entertained at the Kids Quest play space; teens will love the adjacent Cyber Quest arcade. Book an arena suite for your group, and enjoy a concert by an internationally known superstar, like Bruce Springsteen, in style.
Foxwoods offers an array of non-gambling activities as gentle as hunting for deals at the Tanger Outlets mall and as adrenaline-inducing as soaring along America’s only zipline that launches from a 33-story height. What else can you do? Go bowling, make pottery, golf 18 holes, try a virtual reality experience, race go-karts, walk scenic trails, and even learn about Native American history at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum. You might also want to plan ahead for 2024, when Great Wolf Resorts will open a new indoor water park and family getaway destination at Foxwoods.
WILDERNESS RESORTS
In Maine, where sporting camps are a way of life, the vacations are more rustic but no less enchanting at upscale family properties such as Migis Lodge, situated on Sebago Lake, and Attean Lake Lodge, on its own island in Attean Lake. Both are all-inclusive destinations where you’ll meet families who have been returning for generations. While kids go exploring or join in organized programs, grownups can spend time reading, assembling jigsaw puzzles, hiking, or paddling on a pristine lake. It’s hard to say which you’ll miss most when you return home: the sumptuous meals (yes, there will be lobster) or the starry nights.
In the forested interior of Rhode Island, The Preserve Sporting Club & Residences is a year-round sporting lodge the likes of which you might expect to find in the American West. Outdoor enthusiasts can spend days riding horses, shooting clays, fishing, golfing, ziplining, hiking, playing tennis, kayaking, and riding ATVs—although luxuriating at the spa and lazing by the pool are equally worthy pursuits. Accommodations range from Hilltop Lodge rooms to vacation-rental-style cottages, townhomes, and tiny houses. And for families celebrating together, nothing is more magical than sharing a meal in one of the property’s wee Hobbit Houses.
