CONNECTICUT

YEAR VISITED: 2020

FAVORITE CITIES AND EXPERIENCES: Our family has only spent a half a day in the State of Connecticut. While staying at a resort in Pennsylvania we made the two and a half hour drive from East Stroudsburg, PA to New Haven. Traffic was heavy, which made the trek feel longer than originally anticipated, but we slowly made our way up the coast along I-95. We arrived mid to late afternoon.

STADIUMS AND/OR SPORTING EVENTS: We have not attended any sporting events in Connecticut.

ADVENTURE(S): Our first stop was Yale University. Yale is a member of the famed Ivy League, was built in 1701, and is the 3rd oldest college in America. Needless to say it is one of the most prestigious Universities in America and the world. We ended up walking over a mile around the nearly deserted campus. The buildings were beautiful – exactly how you would imagine such a prestigious University.

NOTABLE DESTINATIONS & STOPS: From Yale we headed downtown. New Haven is a city of 130,000 and is the 3rd largest city in Connecticut. It was one of America’s first planned cities and originated in 1638. Everything is laid out in squares, which is now referred to as the “Nine Square Plan”, and therefore the city is fairly easy to navigate. According to my daughters, downtown had a “fun but chill vibe.” We chose to have dinner at Louis Lunch. This restaurant opened in 1895 and is recognized by the Library of Congress for serving the very first hamburger.

Still today, over a hundred and twenty years since it originally opened, it remains a family owned business. Needless to say it is one of the longest standing family run business in the United States. In case you were curious, we ordered hamburgers.