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How to travel by car from Ohio to Boston seeing all the church history sites and and American history sites with your kids. Tons of road trip details to make it a great trip!
This past summer we took went on an amazing trip back east to travel through Church History sites of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church is rich with history, true stories of struggle and faith, and you can visit so many of the places where the actual events happened. We also spent some time in Niagara Falls, New Jersey and Boston, Massachusetts so we could see some of America’s great historical sites as well. It was an epic family road trip–one I have wanted to do almost my whole life. So to finally get a chance to see these places was a dream come true. If you are interested knowing the route we took and the itinerary for our family church history road trip, I’m sharing all of that below and giving you some tips along the way. I spent hours researching and trying to make all of this stuff happen in 10 days, so I hope this family road trip through Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts will help you too.
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Here’s our full itinerary for a 10 Day Church History and American History Road Trip:
A few things to keep in mind: We flew into Cleveland, Ohio and then rented a car and drove all the way with that car until flying out of Boston, MA. This worked well for us since we only had 10 days but if you have time to drive to Ohio, just use this itinerary to help you figure out the church history sites. I will add the hotels and areas we stayed in as much as possible. We also have older kids. My kids are all tweens and teens at the time of this trip so that makes travel easier in some ways, especially packing up luggage everyday and staying in different hotels.
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DAY 1
Arrive in Cleveland, Ohio. We flew into the Cleveland airport. It is very near Kirtland, OH which was our first destination.
We stayed at a Comfort Inn in Mayfield Heights, OH. This location is very close to Kirtland. We were able to unload, rest for the night and then get on our way with just a short drive for our first stop.
DAY 2
Visit Kirtland, Ohio.
We got up early and made it to the Kirtland Temple right as it opened about 9 am. They do tours there for $5.00 per person every hour on the 1/2 hour and they last for about an hour long. Remember that this historical site is NOT owned or operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but it has valuable historical information about Joseph Smith and the early Saints in that area. Definitely worth stopping for, but we did enjoy the other history sites much more.
After this tour we drove a very short distance in Kirtland to other historical sites that are owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of of Latter-day Saints. There we were able to see the Newel K. Whitney Store (we loved this one!), the Whitney Home, and the Ashery and Sawmill. This tour was FREE and took us about 1-2 hours. The visitor’s center there had restrooms and drinking fountains (and air conditioning!).
For lunch we packed a picnic lunch and ate it at the Morley Farm historic site. They have grass and picnic tables for visitors to use. There are not a lot of places to get food around these sites otherwise unless you drive back into the main part of Kirtland. I suggest bringing food with you. There is also a tour at the Morley Farm. It is very short though but still just as interesting.
Afternoon: Drive to Erie, Pennsylvania. After lunch we got back on the road and drove about 1 hour via I-90 to Erie, PA. This was a beautiful drive . . . by the way, and we made it to Erie and stayed at a hotel that had a water park called The Splash Lagoon connected to it!
The Splash Lagoon is an indoor water park similar to the Great Wolf Lodge. It has 3 different hotels connected to it, so you can stay in any of them and still get passes to the water park as part of your stay. We stayed at The Residence Inn and found a deal that gave us 4 Splash Lagoon tickets and a King Suite room for only $199. Guests are allowed to start swimming at noon on the day of their check-in (even though you can’t get into your room until 4 pm), and then your tickets are good for swimming the next day as well.
They have areas for younger kids and big slides, lazy river, wave pool, and much more for older kids and adults. This was a great way to relax and just play after all the intense travel (flights, driving, and visiting historic sites). I highly recommend adding in something just for fun to your historical road trip.
Day 3
Drive to Niagara Falls in New York. After swimming all evening and a good night’s rest we got up and drove 2 1/2 hours to Niagara Falls State Park near Buffalo, NY. We decided to stay on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls since we had one child that did not have a passport, and I was told that you need one now to go to the Canada side, not totally sure if that is true though . . . anyone know? Anyway, we thought the U.S. side was still wonderful though we’ve been told the Canada side is better.
We did the Maid of the Mist Boat Tour and were able to go right down into the falls and see it up close. So we really felt like it was still a good experience.
This picture above shows you basically how much you can see of the falls from the U.S. side. The Maid of the Mist tour takes you on a boat right up close the the falls. I LOVED IT! They give you each a free poncho because you definitely get wet. The loud roar and majesty of the fall is spectacular. We still felt like we experienced Niagara Falls doing it this way and I recommend it if you only have a short time to visit. Overall, this took us about 3 hours.
Afternoon/Evening: Drive to Palmyra, New York. After this we drove the 2 hours east to Palmyra area in New York state. We actually found a hotel in Victor, NY. It was a Homewood Suites with small kitchen and a suite-sized room. This hotel served breakfast and a light dinner every night–awesome way to feed my hungry teens! We stayed here for 2 nights. Also, there are lots of toll roads in this area. They are not too expensive, but they are kind of a pain. Just FYI.
Visit the Palmyra Temple. We took the rest of the afternoon and evening visiting the Palmyra Temple. We called ahead and scheduled to do a session here with our teens. Only members with a special recommend are allowed to go inside the temple, but the grounds are open for other guests to enjoy. I love the stillness and quiet at the Palmyra temple. It’s far away from traffic and a busy city so it’s very peaceful there. It overlooks the area of The Sacred Grove and it’s very serene.
Afterwards we had perfectly awesome ice cream shakes at the Palmyra Chill & Grill. It’s a hamburger stand with all the good stuff . . .just ask the locals or the missionaries about it. So dang good.
Day 4
Visit Palmyra and Hill Cumorah. We decided to take a little extra time in the Palmyra area. There is a lot to see here and we wanted to have time to soak it in. The first day we visited the Smith Family Farm and decided it was one of our favorite places. Tons to see here . . . the Smith Log Home, the Smith Frame Home and barn, the Cooper Shop, the Welcome Center, and The Palmyra Temple.
In the morning, we started our day at the Sacred Grove. We went pretty early in the morning and had the grove mostly to ourselves. We did pass the gardener and a missionary, but otherwise it was still and peaceful as can be.
The Sacred Grove is a quiet grove of trees located right by the Smith Farm and it is where Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in the First Vision. As far as I know, there is no tour for this and it’s just a self-guided kind of thing. The morning light shining through the trees was simply perfection and I was able to get many beautiful pictures. We let our children separate in this grove and just sit and think. They have many benches around and we just found a peaceful place to ponder and enjoy it. This by far was one of our favorite experiences.
This Smith Farm area opens at 9 am. There are FREE tours at the Smith Farm and all the sites owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Each home has a very interesting story and we loved being able to go inside and see where everything happened. The grounds are beautiful here as well! We also went to the Hill Cumorah Site to see where the gold plates were buried and found. There is a visitor’s center here as well and you can walk up to the top of the hill. There is also a back route that we were told was the way Joseph Smith would have gone on the night he was given the plates. That is the way we went and it was definitely the more scenic and shady route. We missed the Hill Cumorah pageant, but I’ve heard that is something cool to see if you are there at that time.
The next stop was the Grandin Building where The Book of Mormon was printed. This is actually a much bigger visitor’s center than I expected! Definitely worth a stop here. The site has FREE tours and a lot of interactive and interesting information for families. There’s more than one floor of displays and information and it’s a great museum. Kids will enjoy this one, I think. This is located in Palmyra, just a few blocks away from all the other sites.
Afternoon: Drive to the Whitmer Farm in Fayette, NY. The Whitmer Farm is a short drive from Palmyra. It seems like it took us 30-45 minutes to drive there. This is the site where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was first organized. You can go inside the Peter Whitmer home and there is also a large Visitor’s Center there, complete with restrooms and drinking fountains. They have movies and displays to see here. The tours are FREE here as well and we liked this one. I really felt the goodness of this place and learned so much about the early days of the church here.
On the way back we stopped at Sauder’s Amish Store for the BIGGEST ICE CREAM CONES EVER. The missionaries recommended this place to us. Amish food, jams, jellies, goods, and food. And the ice cream cones are huge. And delicious.
Then it was back to our hotel in Victor for one more night. We were able to get almost all of Palmyra done in a day and a half. You could definitely spend more time there, depending on the attention span and stamina of your kids, but we felt like this was a sufficient amount of time to see everything. Just in case we needed more time, we did plan a little extra time in our schedule, just in case.
Day 5
Drive to the Priesthood Restoration Site in Pennsylvania. The Priesthood Site is in kind of a random area in PA, near the Oakland Township (27832 St. Road 171 according to Google Maps). It’s about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Palmyra. So we got up early and started this drive. This day has a lot of driving ahead, so stay tuned. . . .
The Priesthood Site is a not like it used to be, I’m told. In the past it was really only a monument or something. But now it has A LOT of stuff to see. WE really enjoyed this stop. It has Joseph and Emma’s home (we learned a lot about the translation of the Book of Mormon here–stuff I never knew before!). There’s also Emma’s childhood home, the priesthood monument, and the actual site of the Aaronic Priesthood restoration in a beautiful grove of trees near the visitor’s center there. There’s also a cemetery there where you can see the grave of Emma and Joseph’s child and Emma’s parents. Then a little way down the road is the Susquehanna River where more keys to the priesthood were restored (pictured above). There is a place you can park and walk down a little way to sit on the bank of the river. Worth a quick stop for sure. We learned a lot in this area, so I highly recommend it.
Afternoon: Drive to New Jersey. With the bulk of our church history sites over with, it was time to get to Boston and see some American history. But we really wanted to stop and see the Statue of Liberty so we made a quick detour and drove over to Morristown, New Jersey (3 hour drive) where we had a hotel for the night. We stayed at a Best Western Plus or the Morristown Inn in New Jersey. This one was a little older but had some patriotic flare to it. It came with free breakfast and we used the gym facilities since we had been driving a total of 5 hours that day.
Day 6
Drive to Liberty State Park to see Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty. When researching how to quickly see the Statue of Liberty without getting caught in New York City traffic, I found out that you can get a Statue of Liberty Tour on the New Jersey side starting at Liberty State Park. We could see the beautiful statue without dragging our kids to New York City in the middle of the hot summer (I figure that’s a trip to do another time).
You can park at Liberty State Park and then head over to the water’s edge to get in line for the ferry. The tickets to take the ferry to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty are combined into one. You can purchase them ahead of time online at Statue Cruises, which I highly advise you to do, because they go fast. We ordered ours a couple months in advance and tickets to the very top of the statue at the crown were already sold out. However we were able to get tickets to the next highest point of the pedestal. It cost us $83.00 total for 5 people to do this, including Ellis Island and the ferry ride.
Loved the stop at Ellis Island too. Look at the picture above ^^. It’s such a gorgeous building and the museum inside is spectacular with many displays, information, a movie, and help finding ancestors too. I was able to find my great-grandma and her mother on the Wall of Honor because they crossed the ocean from Switzerland and immigrated during this time period. Pretty darn cool.
Going inside the statue up to the pedestal was still a memorable experience, even if it’s not the crown. You climb steps to get up there and there’s a museum inside also. You must go through security and cannot take certain items in. Be sure to check that out before you go. Great experience for all of us. All the patriotic feels during this part. Do not miss this experience if you can help it. Our ticket time was at 11:00 am and we still had time to drive to Boston afterward.
Afternoon/Evening: Drive to Boston. We took the rest of the day to drive all the way to Boston so we could spend a few days there seeing everything. This drive took us about 4 hours to get to Waltham, MA (not quite to Boston, but still close). We arrived late in the evening at the Embassy Suites by Hilton there. Pretty awesome hotel, I must say one of our favorites . . . but also more pricey.
Day 7
Visit Boston Temple, Lexington Green, Minute Man Visitor’s Center. For us this day was Sunday and we decided to go to church first thing in the morning at the Arlington Ward in Belmont, MA. This church building is right by the Boston Temple so that was an obvious place to stop next. Gorgeous temple, beautiful grounds, perfect for a Sunday stroll.
Not far from the Boston Temple is Lexington and Concord. These places are full of important sites to see. I wish we had made more time to really study and see these, but we did get a basic feel and it was probably all my kids could handle in one day anyway. So there’s the Lexington Green National Historic Site where the opening shots of the Revolutionary War were fired. There’s a small visitor’s center there and some other historic sites that you can pay to see. We did not do any of those though. We wanted to keep it as free as possible. There is a free tour guide dressed as a revolutionary out in the green there to give you historical facts and tell some stories.
Next we visited the Minute Man Visitor’s Center. Lots of good info here and a great movie to get your thinking about the American Revolution. Again, lots more we could have done here and if you can spend more time, do it. We had lunch here. There were some picnic tables and we had our packed lunches. This was only open until 5:00 p.m. so you gotta get there early enough to enjoy it.
Afternoon: North Bridge and Visitor’s Center in Concord and Walden Pond. Only a short drive away is Concord, MA and this is full of history as well. The North Bridge and the Visitor’s Center are a must-see in my opinion. The Old North Bridge is part of a fascinating story in the Battle of Concord on the first day of the Revolutionary War. A park official was also there to tell us the full story and he was one of the best story tellers I’ve every heard. This is the place where the first enemy fell in this war. Tons to learn here.
Also nearby are The Orchard House where Louisa May Alcott lived and was inspired to write Little Women. The Concord Museum, the famous Walden Pond, and the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where many American authors are buried like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Alcott family, and Henry David Thoreau . . . just to name a few. We stopped at the Cemetery for a few minutes and it was cool to see all these authors (I majored in English, so you know . . .)
When the day was over we went back to our same hotel and enjoyed the rest of our Sunday.
Day 8
Visit Downtown Boston. This day was our chance to see as much of downtown Boston as we could. For this excursion we decided to ride the Boston Metro and avoid all the traffic. Boston traffic is heavy and the roads are a little crazy, so riding the Metro made things easier.
We decided to walk The Freedom Trail (FREE with many historic sites along the way). We started near Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Many notable people have stopped there and given speeches (including President Obama). There’s also entertainment and shops to see there.
Then we walked to the Boston Massacre Site at the Old State House. This is a historic site that you have to pay for the tour, so we actually just took pictures, looked at the spot of the massacre and then walked on. Pretty cool to see though, I have to say. Such an old building (for America)!
Afternoon: Old North Church and North End Italian Food. Next stop was Paul Revere’s house (it’s in a busy area and you also pay to go inside this one), and some famous Boston Italian food in the North End for lunch at the highly rated Ben Cotto restaurant. I had THE BEST pumpkin ravioli with a delicious butter sage sauce. I’m still dreaming about it. On a different day we went back to the North End and tried another Italian restaurant that was just as good. So may options . . . you gotta stop there.
Continuing on our walk we made it to the Old North Church that is famous in Paul Revere’s story (one if by land, two if by sea . . . remember that?). And then you can continue on to Bunker Hill and the famous neighborhoods of Beacon Hill too near the Boston Common. We did not quite make it to those because we were tired and hot by then. So we turned around and headed for home, but not before stopping at the AMAZING Ghirardelli Chocolate Ice Cream Shop in Faneuil Marketplace on the way back. Best ice cream sundaes on a hot afternoon!
For our hotel this night we stayed at The Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA. This inn is THE OLDEST OPERATING INN in AMERICA! It’s famous for being part of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetic book Tales of a Wayside Inn from 1863. It’s 300 years old and it’s rich with history. There’s an amazing restaurant and old-time rooms you can stay in. The grounds are beautiful with an old church, school house, grist mill, and it’s all actually quite picturesque. This was a highlight of our trip! We loved it so so much. I definitely recommend staying here, eating at the restaurant, or at least stopping by for a few minutes to look around.
Day 9
Visit Wayside Inn, Boston and Red Sox Game. So by day nine we were tired. We were feeling lazy after our busy Boston day. So we slept in and we had an amazing breakfast at The Wayside Inn. Then we spent the morning being slow and just exploring The Wayside Inn grounds and property (there’s a lot to see). And then honestly, I don’t remember what else we did that day. It was a do-whatever-kind-of-day . . . it’s kind of a blur, that is until we went to the Boston Red Sox Game at the historic Fenway Park.
Tickets at Fenway Park are pricey. This was definitely a one time splurge for our family but it was worth it to be a part of this piece of Americana. Very nostalgic and classic. We had hot dogs, of course, and cheered like crazy. Though I do have to say it was super muggy and humid the night we were there and I was STICKY the whole time. But it was still just pure awesome and a once in a life time opportunity. Really got me in the mood to watch A League of Their Own, you know what I mean?
Day 10
Visit John Adams National Historic Park in Quincy, MA. Our final day of our trip was one of my very favorites. I loved visiting the homes of John Adams. I’m a huge history buff and one of my favorites is John Adams. His home and personal items are so perfectly preserved and there is a lot to see here. In one trip, with one ticket, you are taken by trolley service to see 3 homes. First you see the birthplace home of John Adams (and it is OLD and yet so well preserved). Then you go to the home he and Abigail lived during much of their early years of marriage and where John Quincy Adams was born. The tour guides really know there stuff here and they fill you with great stories and information. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT>
Finally, you go to Peacefield, the final home of John and Abigail and the place where they both died. It was left in the Adams family for many generations and you can see it just as they left it. All the items in the home belong to someone in the Adams family.
So may pieces that belonged to John, Abigail, John Quincy, and many others who came after before it was turned into a historical site. There’s also the famous Stone Library that contains over 12,000 volumes of classic literature. This collection is highly valuable and contains so many wonderful books and my English major heart was so happy. And most notable for the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that this library contains Emma Smith’s copy of the 1841 Book of Mormon. If you ask about it, the tour guide will tell you if they can. {READ MORE ABOUT THAT HERE}
I could’ve stayed here for hours, but we were on a time crunch since we had flights to go home on this evening and had to get to the airport. And that basically ended our 10 day church history and American history trip in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Boston. I hope this helps you get an idea of how long the traveling takes and where to stop along the way.
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