New Haven sits on the Connecticut coast roughly midway between New York City and Providence, making it a good base. New York is 90 minutes by Metro-North train — close enough for a day trip in either direction.
Hartford, the state capital, is 40 minutes north by train or car and has the Mark Twain House (where Twain lived and wrote Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), the Wadsworth Atheneum (one of the oldest public art museums in the country), and the interesting Old State House. Mystic, about an hour east along the coast, is a classic New England maritime town: the Mystic Seaport Museum recreates a 19th-century village around a working shipyard, and the Mystic Aquarium is one of the best in the region.
