Newburyport sits where the Merrimack River meets the Atlantic, on the north coast of Massachusetts a few miles short of the New Hampshire line and about an hour's drive from Boston. It was once one of the wealthiest seaports in America — a centre of shipbuilding, the China trade, and silver-smithing — and the High Street running parallel to the river is still lined with the great Federal-era mansions that the captains and merchants built in the 1790s and early 1800s. Few American towns preserve so complete a slice of that period.
The downtown was spared the wrecking ball largely by accident: when the harbour silted up and the trade moved on, there was no money to tear anything down. By the 1970s the brick blocks of State and Water streets had been restored as one of the country's first historic-district renewal projects, and they now hold independent bookshops, restaurants, bars, and a permanent farmers' market. The Custom House and the Cushing House Museum tell the maritime story.
Beyond town, Plum Island stretches eleven miles of dunes and salt marsh down the coast — most of it the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, one of the best birding sites on the East Coast, especially during the spring and autumn migrations. A day in Newburyport works well as part of a North Shore loop with Salem and Gloucester.