<p>Our daughter will be attending Wellesley College this fall. Rather than to fly her back for Thanksgiving in Indiana, we are considering the idea of spending Thanksgiving in Massachusetts and renting a house.</p>
<p>Are there any special events in the area at that time? Would people suggest the Berkshires or Cape Cod as a place to rent a house? How about Plymouth?</p>
<p>We’re thinking of doing the same - we have twins, and both will be in the Boston area. Our D at Wellesley and our S at Wheaton. With finals starting so soon after Thanksgiving (at least for our son), I hate the idea of making them travel to/from West Coast.</p>
<p>We’re doing the same thing, except we’ll be in Nashville. S has a football game on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and the Saturday after Thanksgiving. (He’s in the band.) No way to fly him back and forth to California. </p>
<p>Now I need to figure out where we want to spend Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>I never had this situation but I think it depends if you want to cook or not. If Yes, I could see getting a Residence Inn somewhere, so you have the kitchen. If No, there are many restaurants that can give you the whole Thanksgiving experience, pumpkin pie and all.</p>
<p>LaBechtel - I am very familiar with both Plymouth and Cape Cod so I would say go to one of those areas. For Thanksgiving dinner Plymouth Plantation hosts a special dinner. It sells out every year:[Thanksgiving</a> Dining | Plimoth Plantation](<a href=“http://www.plimoth.org/dining-functions/thanksgiving-dining-special-events/thanksgiving-dining]Thanksgiving”>Plimoth Patuxet Museums | Thanksgiving Dining)</p>
<p>From Boston, it’s about an hour west to Sturbridge. There’s the museum, as well as several inns and colonial style restaurants. I’d vote for dinner at the Publick House.</p>
<p>You may find similar things near Plimouth Plantation … I would start looking NOW.</p>
<p>I see as the advantage to this that you might be able to get to the Boston area on Monday or Tuesday, whereas most college students will still have class on Tuesday and wouldn’t have as much flexibility in their travel plans.</p>
<p>This is especially key as of course a snowstorm is definitely possible that time of year, and you can imagine the ensuing mess if flights were canceled near the holiday. (Fortunately, this has not happened in recent years.)</p>
<p>Traffic can be horrible to and from the Cape, not sure if that is the case at Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>Also agree that you should look into hotel and dinner reservations now. Consider also the Colonial Inn in Concord, MA, which is about a half hour drive from Wellesley. It would be a very New England-y place to have Thanksgiving dinner.</p>
<p>Colonial Inn in Concord does a very nice job. This is a great option if staying close to the school. If you want to go away then I would go to either Plymouth or Cape Cod especially to celebrate Thanksgiving! If you can get a reservation for the dinner at Plimoth Plantation I can not think of a better place to celebrate the holiday</p>
<p>Traffic - traffic can be horrendous on the Mass Pike heading out toward the western part of the state and then coming back toward Boston especially on a holiday weekend. Traffic going to Plymouth and Cape Cod should not be bad.</p>
<p>The average distance that students travel from to get to my children’s LAC is 900 miles. There are many students who do not fly home for Thanksgiving as they have classes on Wednesday. The Dean of Students host a fantastic Thanksgiving feast in a lovely conference room and have large screen TV’s with football and games for the students. They started to extend the invitation to families who are visiting and it has grown into quite a celebration. Maybe on of your children’s colleges offer something similar?</p>
<p>You might want to ask your daughter. We never flew our daughter home for Thanksgiving either , because finals ended less than two weeks after that holiday. She spent it with relatives near her college.</p>
<p>BUT DD did say she wished she had been home JUST that freshman Thanksgiving…the first time all of her HS classmates got together post High school. Around here, lots of former HS kids get together the Friday after thanksgiving…sort of a tradition my kid missed.</p>
<p>It sounds expensive, but fun!</p>
<p>^^^Agreed. Sometimes it can’t all be about us. I would ask D what she wants to do. It maybe good to save that money just in case if D decides not to do ROTC.</p>
<p>We did this with our son one year when he was at URI. It was one of those Novembers when the weather was absolutely perfect (I’m talking short sleeves). We went to Plimouth Plantation, Mayflower, all the touristy stuff. Had a great time. Had our Thanksgiving dinner at a place called the Coast Guard House in Narragansett,RI. It was one of our most memorable Thanksgivings ever.</p>
<p>Thanksgiving air fares are already getting very expensive. I just looked into r.t. airfare for D from Logan to Newark, Tuesday to Sunday, and unless you want to leave at 2 a.m. with your hand tied behind your back, it’s $400 already.</p>
<p>Flying on Saturday is less than Sunday. I used to fly back to college on Saturday night after thanksgiving. </p>
<p>Traffic to Western mass is much worse than to the Cape for thanksgiving. The mass pike is the same way to get to NY.</p>
<p>Also consider the [Wayside</a> Inn](<a href=“http://www.wayside.org%5DWayside”>http://www.wayside.org) , a historic New England Inn about 15 miles from Wellesley. Beautiful grounds and small sites on its road.</p>
<p>Wellesley has off Wed/Thurs/Fri…
[Calendars</a> & Dates | Wellesley College](<a href=“http://www.wellesley.edu/provost/dates]Calendars”>Calendars & Dates | Wellesley College)</p>
<p>… so flights in/out of Boston will be pricey and hard to find. Your plan will ease that pain. But even though you will be going against the college traffic, you will still need to shop carefully to get good airline deals.</p>
<p>We did that two years ago and stayed at the Kendall Hotel. (He is at MIT.) We had a wonderful weekend. The hotel was originally a firehouse. It has a nice sitting area with fireplace where we would meet up with our boys and play games in the evening. Our student was able to join us there for breakfast on the mornings he was up in time.</p>
<p>We had Thanksgiving dinner at The Top of the Hub which was a nice walk from the hotel. It was not a real traditional Thanksgiving dinner but after phoning around seemed like the best option for our vegetarian. If you’ve not eaten there the food is good and the view is fantastic. We get to Boston a couple times a year so we didn’t really do any sightseeing, just enjoyed a relaxing time together.</p>
<p>You will only be going “against the crowd” flying for those students who are in college in the area of Boston. There are TONS of college students from the Boston area attending college elsewhere who will be flying to the Boston area airports for the weekend (Logan, Providence, Bradley, Manchester).</p>
<p>Add to that families without college kids who are traveling to new England for the holiday.</p>
<p>We know…we made the Christmas reservations from CA to CT in July…because the flights quickly filled up.</p>
<p>You could probably get away with a late Tues night flight too. </p>
<p>I would think taking the family to MA and renting a place for a few days would be more expensive than flying D home! </p>
<p>Out of curiosity - would you have has to fly her from CO Springs or does the AFA cover flight costs?</p>