New Hampshire was a special stop for many reasons. This was the first time I had been to the east coast (Like the actual coast to put my feet in the sand and touch the Atlantic Ocean from US soil.), It was my first time to the New England area, and it was the start of our search for the best lobster roll we could sink our teeth into.
The whole lobster search turned into quite the adventure consisting of 11 rolls in 5 different states. Once we posted our experience on TikTok, we came to realize that New Englanders are very passionate about their lobster rolls. Hundreds of comments on where we should have gone to how they should be prepared and eaten. Apparently, our videos caused quite a stir racking up 42k views on the first one and over 400k views on the second! If you haven’t read about our lobster roll quest, you can check them out HERE and HERE or check the videos out on TikTok. We had a blast making them and of course eating all the lobster!
Lobster Roll from The Beach Plum pictured below along with the amazing ice cream we had at Lago’s for dessert!
As with many of our stops on this cross-country tour, we only stayed 3 nights in North Hampton NH. A three-night stay means we have a day of travel and two full days to explore, so we try to make the most of every moment. Our stay was at Seacoast Camping & RV Resort which is conveniently located on Highway 1 close to everything. 13 minute drive to the historic town of Portsmouth, 10 minute drive to Hampton Beach, 10 minute drive to Jenness Beach in Rye and a 1 minute drive to Throwback Brewery! (We didn’t make it to the brewery, but I heard good things about it so I put it here for future reference when we return one day)
We had a nice sized site at the end of a row with a fire pit and large grassy area for us to relax in our lawn chairs when we finished a busy day of exploring. Nightly cost was only $57 for full hookups. Pretty good deal for a campground that has well kept sites, a fun rec room with video games and a pool table, and is close to everything. Oh, and they blast 80’s music in the bathrooms & showers – how cool is that? Definitely recommend staying here if you are looking to spend some time exploring around the coast of New Hampshire and aren’t looking for anything too fancy.
After we settled in, our first stop was to the beach so we could put our toes in the sand and test out the water which was surprisingly warm. We learned that most beaches on the east coast are not dog friendly during the summer season (Memorial Day – Labor Day with some extending to mid-September). Some beaches are no dogs at all while others allow dogs before 9am and after 5pm during the summer season so we had to adjust by dropping Sato at daycare for the day or getting some beach time in after 5pm.
For our two full days of exploring New Hampshire, we did a full day at the beach and a full day exploring around Portsmouth.
Day 1 – Hampton Beach
Before heading to the beach, we dropped Sato off at “Play All Day Doggy Daycare”. He scored high on his first day report card and was excited to see us when we picked him up!
When Sato was busy making friends with Nola, Winston, and Blake, we were enjoying an awesome day of fun in the sun at Hampton Beach. Hampton Beach has an awesome beach town vibe with lots of shopping, souvenir stores, T-Shirt shops, bars, restaurants (mostly pizza!) and tasty treats like Fry Doe! It was a typical summer day with hundreds of people enjoying the perfect weather and doing all sorts of beach type activities. We couldn’t have asked for a better day – the water was warm, the weather was warm and the drinks were cold :-).
Day 2 – Portsmouth
Our first stop in Portsmouth was to Strawberry Banke Museum, a 10-acre outdoor compound featuring several buildings from the 1700’s that have been saved from demolition and restored to a living-history museum. The museum is an interactive experience that takes you through several homes and even a general store with replicas of what used to be sold there such as a package of JELL-O for 11 cents! There are also a few character actors on the tour who will answer questions and tell you about what it was like living in this area when it was first being developed as a port town over a hundred years ago. It was fascinating to see how they built an aqueduct system to transport water through hollowed out logs to how their bathrooms were built and used to the architecture and décor that was common during that period. It was an interesting and unique experience that should be on any list of “things to do” when visiting the New Hampshire coast.
The final event on the agenda was spending the second half of the day exploring historic downtown Portsmouth. There certainly isn’t any shortage of places to window shop along Market Street, Bow Street, Hanover Street and Congress Street. We found one of our favorite stores at the corner of Bow and Market called Attrezzi Kitchen Accessories and Wine Room. This store has just about every kitchen accessory you can think of and if food sampling is your thing, you can pretty much cancel lunch or dinner reservations after eating all their cheese, bread, and olive oil samples (guilty!). And what better way to finish up a day of 10,000+ steps than with a beer from Portsmouth Brewery.
We thoroughly enjoyed the limited time we spent along the coastal towns of New Hampshire and look forward to returning soon! We would love to see more of this beautiful state and for our next visit we may have to schedule a week or two exploring the White Mountains as we hear they are not to be missed.
Cheers,
Tiny Trailer Trips Crew
On the last account I worked on, we we fortunate to be able to spend a fair amount of time in Portsmouth! Great little town.