As late September started to arrive, we made our way to Bartlett, New Hampshire. Our drive to Bartlett was, unsurprisingly, chock-full of Serial talk and dotted with pops of red, yellow, and orange foliage. Although the fall colors were certainly starting to emerge, Ellie was a bit disappointed by the stubborn dominance of green throughout most of the drive.

Bartlett is a ski-town in Northern New Hampshire. Like many ski-towns, it is abundant with pine trees and pine tree smells. Bartlett is named after one of America’s Founding Fathers Josiah Bartlett who is the namesake of the President in one of our all-time favorite shows The West Wing. Admittedly, most of our excitement about our stay in Bartlett stemmed from this connection, despite it having little to no impact on our actual experience there. We even tried to seek out a President Bartlett ornament with no luck (it’s rare to come across a town that isn’t capitalizing on Hollywood paraphenalia), but we did find a covered bridge ornament being sold at this cute store that was located on a covered bridge.

Our Airbnb was spacious although Ellie and Daniel had competing opinions on the quality of the space. One thing we did agree on was the generosity of our Airbnb host who invited us to replace the propane tank (which was empty upon our arrival) for the firepit ourselves! In happier news though, we found some incredible hiking areas while in New Hampshire. The region we were in was lousy with huge, cascading waterfalls which had hiking trails running alongside them. We were able to take Winnie with us on two separate waterfall hikes, one of which included a literal river crossing which landed us almost knee-deep in water.

We also had some unexpectedly delightful desserts while in Bartlett. We enjoyed a pumpkin mousse cake at a local restaurant and then found a restaurant/store called the Spaghetti Shed & Italian Market (how could we stay away??) which had an actual fridge-full of delicious Italian desserts, including a bread pudding which we wolfed down handily.

Overall, New Hampshire was a nice stop. We were, however, hoping for a more small-town Northeastern vibe (as opposed to mountainous ski town) and our Airbnb was a tad diappointing due to the quality and somewhat isolated location, so we wouldn’t consider this a favorite. Winnie sure enjoyed herself though.

• How likely we are to visit again: 3/10. We would definitely return to New Hampshire but probably not this specific area.
• How likely we would be to live here: 3/10 Beautiful area but far from major conveniences and nothing especially appealing that stood out.