To aid in locating these places on the map, refer constantly to the Index at the end of the volume.
Leaving Boston or Portland in the morning, any of the points named may be reached in from four to eight hours.
HINTS FOR TOURISTS.—Select your destination, if possible, in advance; and if you require apartments, telegraph to the hotel where you mean to stop, giving the number of persons in your party, thus avoiding the disappointment of arriving, at the end of a long journey, at an over-crowded hotel.
Should you fix upon a particular locality for a long or short stay, write to one (or more) of the landlords for terms, etc.; and if his house is off the line of railway, inform him of the day and train you mean to take, so that he may meet you with a carriage at the nearest station. But if you do not go upon the day named, remember to notify the landlord.
Always take some warm woollen clothing (inside and outside) for mountain ascensions. It is unsafe to be without it in any season, as the nights are usually cool even in midsummer.
From the middle of June to the middle of October is the season of mountain travel. The best views are obtained in June, September, and October. From the middle of September to the middle of October the air is pure and invigorating, the mountain forests are then in a blaze of autumnal splendor, the cascades are finer, and out-of-door jaunts are less fatiguing than in July and August.
Should you wish merely to make a rapid tour of the mountain region, it will be best so to arrange your route before starting that the first day will bring you where there is something to be seen, to a comfortable hotel, and from which your journey may be continued with an economy of time and money.
The three journeys described in this volume will enable you to see all that is most desirable to be seen; but the excellent facilities for traversing the mountains render it immaterial whether these routes are precisely followed, taken in their reverse order, or adopted as a general plan, with such modifications as the tourist’s time or inclination may suggest.
Upon arriving at his destination the traveller naturally desires to use his time to the best advantage possible. But he is ignorant how to do this. “What shall I do?” “Where shall I go?” are the two questions that confront him. Let us suppose him arrived, first, at North Conway.