suz24

Flying into boston and out of philly sounds good. But if your student isnt starting college this fall, then how about new england this spring and philly in late summer? Or considering the summer temperatures, perhaps the pther way around. It will cost a bit more and i imagine you will want to save money for college, but it may make for more meaningful visits and may be a good investment in the long run. My main advice is to enjoy this time with yor kid...take photos...take your time...have good conversations ...and have fun.

moo

I thank each of you for your reply. While this is not a college admissions website but rather a travel website, I clearly have asked for advice on travel logistics and not a review on how my child can or cannot be accepted into any of these schools. For a kid who has great grades, test scores, and some great leadership and volunteer gigs, the "Ivys," which are our concentration on this trip, may be a reality for him and touring them will clearly open up the idea of options in a sea of thousands of educational possibilities. Having said that, back to the original proposition of logistics: I have purchased plane tickets for into and out of Boston. I am driving everyday to university arranged college informational sessions and tours. I need practical logistic advice on the following itinerary:

Monday: Arrive Boston noon. Pick up car at airport and drive to Harvard for 2:00 Information session and tour. Hang out a bit. Get back into the car and drive (2 1/2 hours)to Hanover, NH for overnight. Need area accommodation advice perhaps in White River Jct., VT?

Tuesday: Dartmouth info and tour. Leave town to New Haven, CT. Taking Route 91 (about 3 hours). Is this a good route? Overnight in New Haven. Need area accommodation advice.

Wednesday: Yale info and tour. Hang out. Leave town and drive to Princeton, NJ or Philadelphia and need accommodation advice. Please read next step and help me out here. **

Thursday: Princeton info at 10 a.m. and tour at 11:15 a.m. I am assuming tour will last one hour. Need to drive to Philadelphia to Penn info session that starts at 1:00. Will I make it on time? This Penn day ends at 4:30. Will overnight in Philadelphia. **

** Would you advise that I drive from Yale to Princeton and try to make it on time for Penn or just go from Yale to Phily tour Penn and try to to Princeton next day on drive back toward Boston?

Friday: I have to drive from either Philadelphia or Princeton to Boston with a stop at Brown for a self guided tour and no info session. We will be in the Boston area Friday night to spend Saturday just hanging out in Boston. We fly out Sunday morning at 6 a.m.!

Saturday: Boston to play and be tourists. Maybe drive up to Salem?

Sunday: 6:00 a.m. flight

So, another logistical question: Where should we stay Friday night and Saturday night. Is there somewhere in Boston or Cambridge for Friday night that would be a great base for sightseeing on Saturday? Would it be best to stay in the same place Saturday night for our early departure on Sunday or drop car at airport on Saturday night and stay at an airport hotel on Saturday?

Thanks for your logistical advice.

williamscb13

New Haven has a dearth of hotels go figure for a college town. the place to stay is the Omni. Right on the town green.

I have no advice as to whether to stay overnight in New Haven or go onto your next location.

Vttraveler

White River Junction VT is not a very charming place to stay. I would try to find something in Hanover or Lebanon. We live too close to the area to have spent time overnight there. There are quite a few places including motels and B &Bs either on the green or within a few miles of the campus.

Going from Hanover to New Haven via I-91 is the only logical route I can think of.

Trying to do the Princeton info session and tour and then make it to Penn for a 1:00 session is not realistic. Our son goes to Penn and we have made the Princeton to Penn campus trip on one of our trips down in our never-ending quest to find a good route from the NYC area to Philadelphia.

If you stay at the Charles Hotel or Inn at Harvard in Cambridge Friday night you would be able to see Harvard Square that evening and would be able to get the T (subway) into Boston easily for sight seeing. There is plenty to see right in Boston (as opposed to going to Salem for the day) and, again, it would give your son more of an idea of what going to Harvard would be like.

With such an early flight Sunday I would stay near the airport

cw

Since you're driving straight from Cambridge to Hanover, you'll need the car. In Cambridge there is parking at the Charles Hotel, under Holyoke Center, and at the Garage. Street parking spaces have strict time limits.

When you return to Boston, I'd return the car right away on Friday night. You don't need it in Boston and paying to park will run you about $35 a night, unless you park in the Boston Common garage on Saturday/Sunday for $11.

Stay in the same hotel for both nights and take a taxi to the airport for your early Sunday morning flight. Any hotel in Back Bay, and the waterfront area is convenient for sightseeing. I would recommend walking the Freedom Trail on Saturday and forget about driving to Salem. Enjoy Boston--and let your son and yourself get to know it a bit more. You may be coming back!

I have not driven to Philadelphia in years but I do remember it taking what seemed like a long time from the NJ turnpike into the city, so I'd be inclined to advise you to reschedule Princeton and do it on the way back. Others may have up-to-date advice on that.

No recommendations for hotels in those cities but usually the college website lists hotels with distance from campus under visitor information. Good luck with everything. When is your trip? Hotel availability and prices differ week to week depending on what else is going on.

lcuy

From my experience with Boston, I would not rent the car before heading to Harvard. Two hours from landing to appointment? I've found the car places really slow at Logan, and driving & parking at Harvard may take a lot longer than expected. You might just taKe the MRT or a taxi to Harvard, then get the car afterwards. Of course, then you'll have the luggage, so maybe have son take MRt to Harvard (easy)and you meet him there. That way, at least he'll make the appointment.
And unless you'll be driving outside of the city on Saturday, I'd get rid of the car as soon as I arrived back in Boston. It is one of the least car friendly cities anywhere. Luckily, they have good public transport and lots of cabs.

I do like staying at one of the two airport hotels if I have a really early flight out of Logan. It's one of the rare places I'll use priceline as there are only the two "four star" (??) hotels in the airport section. The last few times I "won" a room for about $109 vs the $200+ rack rate.

On Thursday, I'd do a self tour of Princeton BEFORE the info session -- then head to Penn right after the info session ends.

sf7307

Re New Haven accommodations - the Omni is the only "big chain" hotel right in town, but The Study is the nicest hotel in town. There's also a Courtyard, but it's a few minutes drive to campus, not walking distance. There are many standard-issue motels about 10-15 minutes from New Haven, in Orange and Milford -- these are your typical Courtyard, Residence Inn, Homewood Suite types. We are staying at the Residence Inn Milford for graduation because the Courtyard New Haven was charging in excess of $500 a night and we simply refuse to pay that for a Courtyard.

HowardR

As for your schedule, you're doing fine until you get to Thursday's and Friday's plans. I think you're really pushing it to try to do Princeton and Penn on Thursday and then make the long Friday drive with a stop at Brown on Friday.
You won't have enough time on Thursday to make it to Penn by 1 p.m. Is there a later info session at Penn? As for moving one of those to Friday, that won't work. It'll be tough enough having the long drive from either Philadelphia or Princeton to Boston, with a stop at Brown. I don't see how you could possibly fit in an additional Princeton or Penn visit on Friday.

Ozarksbill

Well, haven't you gotten lots of advice regarding travel! And also about college admissions etc. You need to re read what nytravler says not all this stuff about how to get here and there. Just wwat does this student want? I'm a Yale grad now living near Harvard...and I have at least three questions

1) What do you hope to accomplish with a quick look-see at so many Ivy League schools? To me it seems sensible to visit one school (well maybe two) with thorough tours and interviews. Then take in several more at a later date.

2) Can your student actually be accepted into these Ivy League schools and what exactly are his major areas of interest? I truly believe that this is most important as each university has excellence in certain departments.

3) Is it so important even if you can afford it to go to an Ivy League school while overlooking other institutions located closer? In other words, have you considered the offerings of institutions that aren't Ivy League? Unbelievable the number of excellent colleges just in the Boston area.

Bill in Boston

lcuy

Bill, the OP specifically asked for info on getting to these schools within a certain time frame.

Whether the son has the potential to get accepted or if the family is considering other universities is really none of our business in this instance, and is truly just raining on their parade..

On the other hand, if Op comes back later and asks what we think of these schools, then we can happily go beyond the logistics of their road trip.

lcuy

I'm sorry Bill, i shouldn't have directed that at you. I just feel sorry when a poster asks a direct question and can't get a straight answer.

lcuy

Moo, one restaurant we enjoyed on the way from Hartford to Boston was Rein's deli:

http://www.reinsdeli.com/

It was recommended by someone here the first time we drove between daughters at Columbia and Boston Univ. (BTW, the one who graduated with an engineering degree at Columbia had a high school GPA of only 3.1 and few extracurricular activities, so there is always hope! Of course, she's half Asian, so maybe that was the key....)

suz24

You should also get the radio station numbers for stations that are good for traffic reports every 10 minutes. With times that tight, you may need to reroute around accidents. If you do run into delays on the road, do you have back up plans? May want to make some for peace of mind while driving. Will you be doing all the driving yourself, or can your student help out? Probably just you if it is a rental car. So plan for a bit of time to get over driver fatigue each day in order to keep your and your child safe

capxxx

On the drive between CT and NJ, get your traffic reports from WCBS, 880 on the AM dial. News and traffic every 10 minutes ``on the 8s'' (08, 18, 28, etc).

We usually take the Merrit Parkway to the Tappan Zee bridge to the Garden State Pkway, unless the traffic report says otherwise.

Ozarksbill

Apologies to moo...I deserved the comment from lcuy. Only thing wanted was travel advice, not long distant though well intended extraneous ideas.

moo

Hey Capxxx, Do you know the highway numbers for the Merritt Parkway, Tappan Zee bridge and the Garden State Parkway. I was just going to take interstate 95 but this sounds like a better route. Is is less congested than the 95? Thanks so much. And Bill, obviously from all of the comments I have received you are not the first to chip in with an opinion and I do understand everyone's concerns (college selection is a passionate thing that I have already been through with one kid). But again, I am really looking for logistics as I am not from the area and need practical logistics to maneuver our way through this dense area. Can anyone offer road logistics of how to get from Philly to the Back Bay area of Boston (specific highways)and from there to Logan? Thanks

Aduchamp1

(BTW, the one who graduated with an engineering degree at Columbia had a high school GPA of only 3.1 and few extracurricular activities, so there is always hope! Of course, she's half Asian, so maybe that was the key....)

Columbia does not lack for Asian students. Maybe it was geographical?

cw

I would take the Merritt Parkway, which turns into the Hutchinson Parkway, and then take the Cross County Parkway and follow signs to the George Washington Bridge. Others will have their own routes.

Check these on a map--I think the Wilbur Cross Pkwy. in Conn. turns into the Merritt. The advantage to the parkway system, as opposed to the interestates, is that you don't have trucks.

From Philly you're going to Boston via Providence, correct? So 95, wherever you pick it up, will bring you to Providence. From there take 95 N. to 93 N. to Boston, where you'll actually be going south for a bit, and get off at the Massachusetts Ave. exit, and take Mass. Ave. north to Back Bay. Where are you going?

Alternately, it may be faster and easier to stay on 95 North to the Mass. Pike, I90, and get off at Copley Square.

You should have some good maps or a triptik from AAA, or a GPS.

china_cat

I-287 is the Cross Westchester parkway, and that's the one that goes across the Tappen Zee.

it is definitely better to avoid i-95 for this trip.

Also, I agree with what cw posted above, about getting from Princeton to Penn. It does take quite a while to get into Philadelphia, and I don't think you can make it in the short time frame you have listed. Plus, my recollection is that parking at Penn is even worse than parking around Harvard. you need time to find a garage, then walk to wherever your info session is.

lcuy

Actually Audchamp, I think they took her because she looks so cute in a hard hat...