Indiana Dunes to New Hampshire

NHDad wrote:
We are doing Niagara Falls on the way out so heading back that way and taking I90 where we came from would not be my first choice. We are in Southern NH.

It appears we could take I-80 for the majority of the way, once we get back to the new England area I know my way.

Right you are, and you stated as much—I read your first post too quickly. My apologies.

I-86 to I-88 (as suggested by Matt) is a nice drive, although there aren't many attractions as such along the way once you get into New York state. (I am not familiar with the first half of his suggested route.) The Corning Museum of Glass is far more fascinating than it would at first seem, and is a great place to spend a few hours at.

If you go along I-80, you could stop for a day or so at Knoebel's amusement park (in Elysburg, PA). It's a very nice, quite traditional amusement park, and they have a couple of associated campgrounds. If you like Canobie Lake, you'd definitely like Knoebels.

Well Dad,

If I were doing this run (again) with the kids onboard, I would find my way to US 20 about Southbend and take that across Indiana and Ohio. You don't say if you want museums, but you pass 20 miles north of the Cord/Auburn/Dusenberg and the American Truck Museum (co-located). Stay with US 20 through Toledo it becomes 120 and runs you into I-280. Go south to Rt2 and get off and take RT-2 across the top of Ohio. In Cleveland it becomes 2/90. Then stay with 90.

Want a Museum? Hook up I-79 north into Erie and find the maritime (name forgotten) museum there.

Run 90 until you see I-86. I-86 and I-88 make up the NY Southern Tier e-way. Stay with that until you get to Schenectady and you have just save 40+$us is tolls. From there, we used to go to Glens Falls and then on to Concord.

Have a safe drive.

Matt - an east coast refugee

We are doing Niagara Falls on the way out so heading back that way and taking I90 where we came from would not be my first choice. We are in Southern NH.

It appears we could take I-80 for the majority of the way, once we get back to the new England area I know my way.

Routing somewhat depends on where in NH you're going to. For southernish NH, crossing back near Niagara Falls and more or less taking I-90 is probably the quickest (though not necessarily the most interesting) route, of course making the appropriate adjustments to avoid the mess that is the Boston area. For northernish NH, it may make more sense to continue through Canada around the northern side of Lake Ontario.

A few possible destinations along the way include the Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village outside of Detroit (now called just The Henry Ford, I believe), which could easily consume two days at least in itself; Niagara Falls if you haven't seen it already; various nice things around Rochester, such as the Strong Museum of Play, the George Eastman house, Seabreeze amusement park (a neat smallish family-run affair), etc.; and Letchworth State Park, an hour or so south of Rochester. I'm sure there are several others as well. The Henry Ford and Letchworth would be my top suggestions.