Boston or Verginia on labor day weekend???
 

All

I am satying in Cherry hill, NJ. I am planning a 3 days tour with my wife and kid. I am looking for 1 day in city, downtown and 1 and half day in some activity on the lake or beach.

I am considering boston or verigia beach. I am not getting sports activity near boston and city activity near verginia beach. Can anybody suggest something??

This is a hard weekend for which to recommend a location since it is the traditional end of summer in many places, making the beaches and roads very crowded.

If you can fly to Boston, I would recommend it because of the variety of activities available, from museums to cricket matches (there are several leagues). You can go to the Boston Harbor Islands on a cruise or walk the Freedom Trail to see important sites from the American Revolution.

But I don't recommend driving here owing to heavy traffic this weekend.

Virginia Beach is near Norfolk, which has many of the city activities you might be looking for (Chrysler Art Museum, for example) but the traffic could be difficult, especially around the Delaware Memorial Bridge and Washington on Friday and Monday.

Have you visited the Brandywine Valley on the Pennsylvania-Delaware border? It is really a day trip for you if you wish, and there are beautiful gardens, lovely scenery, historic homes to tour, and museums of various sorts.

How about Philadelphia or NYC for your city and Ocean City, NJ for your beach?

I don't mean to discourage you - but this is major holiday weekend and you are very late - many weeks late in deciding what to do. Many lodgings will be full - and many of those that have room will require that you stay for 2 or 3 nights.

I am not aware of places that have big cities in immediate proximity to beaches except for Miami and CA - an I'm assuming that you intend to drive - rather than fly - which could make for a hellish weekend fighting traffic.

NYtraveler is right, most places will be full, or have minimum stays. But you could stay in Boston and take a day trip to the beach. You could take the fast ferry from downtown Boston to Provincetown, then rent bikes or maybe take the shuttle to the National Seashore.

You could also drive from Boston to north shore beaches, such as Crane's if you have a car. You can even go as far as Hampton beach.

Traffic will be an issue, of course.

I'll go ahead and add my discouragement. A holiday weekend drive down 95 will be ghastly. Check out the weather forecast as well. We are looking at potential rain left over from Isaac and hot humid temps this weekend. I love Virginia Beach (Marine Science Museum very close, Jamestown and Yorktown reasonably close if you're staying a week) but wouldn't dream of going this weekend. (And I'm 200 miles south of you and closer.)

We went to the Brandywine Valley a couple of years ago and loved it. Philadelphia and New York are lot of fun and both way closer and more doable for you this weekend.