A Road Trip With Mom: Mother’s Day Road Trips for All Ages

Mother’s Day doesn’t have to be about breakfast in bed and lounging around the house. What better way to spend time with the mom on your list than with a road trip? Well, OK, breakfast in bed and then a road trip. This collection of local sites and attractions will help you plan the perfect Mother’s Day trip.

Before you go anywhere with Mom, remember to save with AAA Tickets. You can get savings of up to 40% at concerts, theme parks, virtual events, museums, attractions and more!

Note: Due to the ever-changing nature of the COVID-19 crisis, please see official websites before visiting to check for restrictions or closures.

Kids

Kids and moms alike will love local zoos and aquariums like Roger Williams Park Zoo (Providence, R.I.), Mystic Aquarium (Mystic, Conn.), the Bronx Zoo, Franklin Park Zoo (Boston, Mass.) and Beardsley Zoo (Bridgeport, Conn.). The kids will love seeing how the animals are celebrating Mother’s Day with their mamas, from the possums with babies on their backs to little elephants clinging onto their moms’ tails.

Check out our list of New England Zoos and Aquariums.

If the zoo isn’t for you, head to a children’s museum instead. One of the best children’s museums in the Northeast is The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, the only collections-based museum in the world devoted solely to the study of play. It’s also the second-largest children’s museum in the country.

Kids might also enjoy the Museum of Firefighting in Hudson, New York. You may need them to rescue you from a burning building one day, and they need all the training they can get. Also, kids like firetrucks.

If that macaroni card isn’t cutting it for you, put the kids to work in the Herkimer Diamond Mines instead in Herkimer, N.Y. Herkimer diamonds are actually double-terminated quartz crystals, some of which are millions of years old. Visitors can explore the mines and find crystals. Make sure to bring safety goggles and chisels of your own, though!

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Teens   

Peel your teen off the couch this Mother’s Day for their own road trip with mom. Not even teenagers are too cool for the Northeast’s many natural wonders.

At Niagara Falls, you can take the Cave of the Winds Tour and get up close and personal with nature on the Maid of the Mist boat tour. Or go to the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. It’s the highest peak in the Northeast, with breathtaking panoramic views. Take the 30-40-minute drive up to the summit via the Mount Washington Auto Road, or hop on the Cog. Just be sure to bring a winter jacket – it’s cold up there (and often snowing)!

Adventurous teens will also like Sky High Adventure Park in Ellicottville, N.Y., which features an aerial park, a climbing forest and a mountain coaster. Afterward, you can all go to Sky High Adventure Park’s Oasis Spa to unwind. A little something for them, and a little something for you – everybody wins. Teens might also enjoy the Newport Cliff Walk, a 3.5-mile scenic path that follows the Newport, R.I., shoreline. While most of the trail is easily walkable, there are a few sections that will test your limits (and your fear of heights).

Some teenagers prefer the strange and unusual to the adventurous – and they deserve a road trip with Mom too! Goth and quirky teens will love places like the Batsto Village Ghost Town in New Jersey, an abandoned company town in the middle of the Wharton State Forest pine barrens. Batsto is spooky, but it’s also incredibly preserved, and makes for a fascinating history tour.

Another quirky Northeast landmark is the Museum of Everyday Life, a “self-service museum” in a dilapidated white barn on the side of the road in Glover, Vt. The museum is really an ongoing art piece celebrating the mundanities of everyday life, complete with interactive exhibits on things like dust, pencils, matches, safety pins and toothbrushes.

Grown-ups

You might be a mother looking for something to do with your grown children, or an adult child looking for something to do with your mother. Either way, these destinations make for a great road trip. One easy way to celebrate Mother’s Day is by going to a local city, like New York or Boston. Even smaller cities like Portland, Maine, will have fun Mother’s Day things to do.

Rather than heading to the city, you might want to go to a charming small town together. Mystic, Conn., is a picturesque seaside town complete with museums, B&Bs, restaurants and lots of adorable boutiques and shops. Down in Pennsylvania is Lancaster County, the home of Amish Country. You’ll be able to tour wineries, breweries and charming covered bridges. You can learn about the Amish way of life and even purchase one of their hand crafted or hand grown goods.

If you like to shop ‘til you drop, check out one of the many outlet centers we have in the Northeast! You can get your fix at Tanger Outlets, VF Factory Outlets and Manchester Designer Outlets for starters. If you’re headed to Tanger Outlets, don’t forget that AAA members receive a free coupon book at Tanger.

Another great way to spend Mother’s Day is out east in Long Island’s wine country. Check out the Long Island Wine Trail for a selection of wineries and vineyards to visit. You could also go from one vineyard to another by bike on tours like East End Bike Tours and Pour & Pedal.

There’s no gift better than a shared experience. Make this a road trip with mom that you’ll never forget.

Need a ride? AAA members can save up to 20% on Hertz rentals. 

What are you doing for your road trip with mom (or with kids)? Let us know in the comments below!