Getting There

By Plane

Airlines serving New England include American (tel. 800/433-7300; www.aa.com), Continental (tel. 800/523-3273; www.continental.com), Delta (tel. 800/221-1212; www.delta.com), JetBlue (tel. 800/538-2583; www.jetblue.com), Northwest (tel. 800/225-2525; www.nwa.com), Southwest (tel. 800/435-9792; www.southwest.com), United (tel. 800/864-8331; www.united.com), and US Airways (tel. 800/428-4322; www.usair.com), among others. Nearly all of them serve Boston's Logan International Airport (BOS), your likely hub of arrival or connection if you're coming by air. Bradley International Airport (BDL) also does a fair bit of domestic business these days.

Commercial carriers serve smaller cities in the region, as well, such as Burlington, VT; Manchester, NH; Portland and Bangor, ME; and Providence, RI. Airlines most commonly fly to these airports from New York or Boston, although direct connections from other cities, such as Chicago, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, are available. Many of the scheduled flights to smaller New England cities from Boston are aboard smaller prop planes; ask the airline or your travel agent if this is an issue of concern for you. Even smaller towns and cities are served by feeder airlines and charter companies, including those flying into air strips in Rutland, VT; Rockport, ME; and Trenton, ME (near Bar Harbor).

Here's a tip: If you're heading for a remote area of New England, it's often cheaper to fly into Boston into Boston's Logan Airport and then renting a car or connecting by bus to your final destination. (Boston is about 2 hr. by car from Portland and Hartford each, less than 3 hr. from the White Mountains.)

Travelers should note that Boston can be very congested, and delayed flights are endemic. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (two of the four doomed flights departed from Boston), increased security has led to periodic but massive delays during check-in and screening.

With far fewer flights, the smaller airports have not been subject to such huge disruptions, and travelers may find that the increased expense and less flexible flight times involved with using these airports are offset by the less stressful experience of checking in and boarding.

Note that discount airfares often aren't as easy to obtain to smaller airports of northern New England as to the larger cities, but notable exceptions apply. In the last few years, the airport in Manchester, NH (MHT), has grown in prominence thanks to the arrival of Southwest Airlines, which has brought competitive, low-cost airfares and improved service. Manchester has gone from a sleepy backwater airport to a bustling destination, recently eclipsing Portland in numbers of passengers served. Travelers looking for good deals to the region are advised to first check with Southwest (tel. 800/435-9792; www.southwest.com) before pricing other gateways.

Upstart discounter JetBlue offers direct service between Burlington, Vermont, and New York City's LaGuardia Airport, with onward connections. For more information, call tel. 800/538-2583 or check online at www.jetblue.com.

By Car

Coming from the New York area (your most likely entry point, unless you're Canadian), several interstate highway corridors serve New England. I-91 heads more or less due north from Hartford, Connecticut, through Massachusetts and along the Vermont-New Hampshire border. I-95 parallels the Atlantic coast through Boston, after which it strikes northeast across New Hampshire and along the southern Maine coast before heading north toward the Canadian border. The Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) makes a wandering east-west jaunt from Boston to the Berkshire Mountains -- for a price: it's a toll road.

From Boston, you can head north on I-95 for Maine, or take I-93 for New Hampshire and the White Mountains. In Concord, New Hampshire, I-89 departs from I-93 northwest toward Burlington, Vermont.

If scenery is your priority, the most picturesque way to enter New England is from the west. Drive through New York's scenic Adirondack Mountains to Port Kent, New York, on Lake Champlain, then catch the car ferry across the lake to Burlington.

By Train

Getting to Boston by train is no problem, but from there train service to the rest of New England is surprisingly limited. Amtrak's Vermonter departs Washington, D.C., with stops in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York before following the Connecticut River northward. Stops in Vermont include Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, Claremont (New Hampshire), White River Junction, Randolph, Montpelier, Waterbury, Burlington/Essex Junction, and St. Albans. The Ethan Allen Express departs New York and travels northward up the Hudson River Valley and into the Adirondacks before veering over to Vermont and terminating at Rutland. Buses continue on to Killington and northward to Middlebury and Burlington.

After more than a decade of delays, Amtrak finally relaunched rail service to Maine in December 2001, restoring a line that had been discontinued in the 1960s. The Downeaster now operates four times daily between North Station in Boston and Portland (one-way fare: $22), with intermediate stops at Haverhill, Massachusetts; Exeter, Durham, and Dover, New Hampshire; and Wells, Saco, and Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Travel time is about 2 hours and 30 minutes between Boston and Portland, with that duration expected to decrease as track upgrades are completed. Bikes may be loaded and off-loaded at Boston, Wells, and Portland. Four trips daily are offered.

For more information on train service, contact Amtrak (tel. 800/872-7245; www.amtrak.com).

There are also a number of light rail commuter lines radiating out from Boston, though you'll use these only rarely, if at all -- the most useful ones head northeast to quiet oceanside Cape Ann.

By Bus

Bonanza (tel. 800/556-3815 or 617/720-4110) operates largely in Connecticut. Concord Trailways (tel. 800/639-3317; www.concordtrailways.com) serves New Hampshire and Maine, including some smaller towns in the Lake Winnipesaukee and White Mountains areas. Greyhound (tel. 800/231-2222 or 617/526-1810) is nationwide, and serves many destinations in New England. Peter Pan (tel. 800/343-9999 or 617/426-7838) serves western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Plymouth & Brockton (tel. 508/746-0378) serves Massachusetts's south shore and onward to Cape Cod. And Vermont Transit (tel. 800/451-3292; www.vermonttransit.com) is affiliated with Greyhound and serves Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine with frequent departures from Boston. The luxury LimoLiner (tel. 888/546-5469; www.limoliner.com) transports businesspeople between the Hilton hotels in Boston's Back Bay and on New York's Avenue of the Americas. No-frills Fung Wah (tel. 212/925-8889; www.fungwahbus.com) connects Boston's South Station and Canal Street in Manhattan's Chinatown.

High- and Low-End New York Bus Options -- Many travelers find standard interstate bus service inadequate; for others, it's too swanky. Both have options on the New York-Boston route.

Business-oriented LimoLiner (tel. 888/546-5469; www.limoliner.com) service connects the Back Bay Hilton, 40 Dalton St., to the Hilton New York, 1335 Ave. of the Americas (with an on-request stop in Framingham, MA). The luxury coach seats 28 and has Internet access, work tables, leather seats, and an on-board attendant. The one-way fare is $79.

At the other end of the spectrum, a number of companies run between Boston's Chinatown and New York's Chinatown. I've heard too many anecdotal accounts of poor maintenance and unsatisfactory service to give this option an unqualified recommendation, but it's madly popular with students and other bargain-hunters. The one-way fare is about $15. The largest operator is Fung Wah (tel. 212/925-8889; www.fungwahbus.com), which shuttles between Boston's South Station and Canal Street in Manhattan.