I grew up in the landlocked Midwest. Summers were spent at swimming pools, running through sprinklers, and sliding down a big yellow slip’n slide we set up in our yard. That was my only real exposure to water activities and water culture. I’m comfortable with cornfields, mile roads, and farming culture because that’s what I was surrounded by. I was familiar with towns like Des Moines, Lincoln, and the Quad Cities – all mid size Midwestern towns we traveled to. However, the seaside towns and islands of New England, like Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Newport were as foreign sounding to me as Paris, or Rome. And the thought of a New England getaway; beaches, lobster bakes, and a summer island cottage was completely foreign to me. It was time I finally discovered this foreign American sea culture and have a true New England getaway.

I took Blount’s Grand Mariner small ship Islands of New England trip. We went to five iconic towns/islands with very strong sea cultures. Each had varying water-centered histories and most played important roles in our US Sea Culture. I quickly learned though they each had different personalities sort of evidenced by the vehicle that we toured the island in! Every day we’d arrive in a new location, dock the ship, and hop in some sort of vehicle to do a short island/town tour and then we had the rest of the time to ourselves to organize any activities we wanted to do.

Read the entire Perfect New England Getaway article to see where we went, what we did, and what our boat was like!

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