Five Connecticut Gems

With a Covid summer I decided to stick to instate summer Connecticut adventures for my girl gang, nothing indoors and limited beaches. I had some homework cut out for me and made a list of 20 places, give or take; we had all summer, why not adventure out into our home state. One other criteria, for my autistic sensory sensitive girls, locations had to be low key. Perfect for this summer anyway 🙂

Here are the top five Connecticut gems from our summer adventures:

Favorite hike: Case Mountain

I liked the hike overall, a little tougher on the girls but I pushed them more and more this summer and this one was a good longer hike because there are so many trails! You really couldn’t get lost.

Favorite lighthouse: Lighthouse Point Park.

To be fair, this was the only lighthouse we could get up close and personal to. The others we visited we saw from the shoreline or they were on private property (or hurricane damage blocked the entrance, yup, that kind of summer). This one is on a beach, I had to pay to park there ($25) and unfortunately the beautiful historical carousel wasn’t opened to explore, still stunning.

Favorite garden: Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens. Close runner-up, not really a garden, the Old Drake Flower Bridge. The Arboretum had many walking trails we enjoyed before the garden area.

The Flower Bridge was beautiful! It’s a short bridge, something you can visit for 10-20 minutes and be done.

Favorite out of the ordinary: Studio 80 + Sculpture Garden

I had never heard of this place before! We walked around to all the sculptures, picked out our favorites and I brought a picnic lunch with us.

Favorite historical site: Gillette Castle, close runner-up Yale University. Couldn’t go inside either place but I will for certain return to both once we can. I’m dying to get inside the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The castle felt like something out of a movie set!