Hi orangetravelcat1,
I just booked our flights and motor home rental for Sept 29-Oct 13. Flying into/out of Boston. We'll be 'chasing the color' for two weeks.

I don't know if you like antiquing but Antique Alley in NH runs from Chichester to Lee on Hwy 4. This is just southeast of Concord. 24 miles with 500 shops. I will think I died and went to heaven.

Rt 4 thru Antique Alley is my preferred route to the seacoast/Portsmouth. At some point you change to Rt 16 which connects at a traffic circle to I95 (if you want to go to Maine). After you get past Durham, you continue thru lovely country side and then over the bridges that go over Great Bay. If you're want to stop for a picnic, Hilton park is right there. We've used it as a rest/lunch stop when we pulled a camper. MapQuest generally tells you to go from Concord to Rt 101 but that is a very boring limited access highway.

500 shops is probably counting booths within a multi-dealer building. I doubt if there are 500 but there are definitely a lot of shops. Be careful. A fodorite complained about this route because of people braking to visit shops. We've never had a problem and rarely see much traffic if it's not a summer weekend.

late September is usually peak foliage in northern VT. It would probably be a little early for foliage near Burlington (warmer climate because it is near Lake Champlain) or farther south. I would drive up from Boston via I-89 rather than trying to drive Route 100 all the way from the south.

I agree that VT is not a great place for wineries, but it has excellent small breweries if you are interested in beer.

We decided to choose Concord NH as our base and do day trips to Portsmouth, the White Mountains, and someplace in VT. We will also include a short trip to Merrimack NH to see the Budweiser Clydesdales.

We will take a bus from Logan to Concord as we dont want to drive from Logan, and get a car in Concord the next morning.

Extremely reasonable plan

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions and help.