Our perfect CONNECTICUT road trip! (Amazing hikes, waterfalls, local FOOD, & MORE!)

We have made it to our 47th state of Connecticut. Located in gorgeous New England, Connecticut was the fifth state in the U.S. and is home to forests, waterfalls, farms, unique eats, larger cities, coastal towns, and so much more. Over the next four days, we're road tripping around the state and to kick things off, we're in the northwest corner to hike part of the Appalachian Trail. About 50 miles of the Appalachian Trail crosses through the northwest corner of Connecticut and this morning we're hiking to a spot called Rand's View. We're following the route from Mount Prospect and Raccoon Hill on all trails, but Rand's View will be about five miles round trip. We made it to the first major stop on this trail, the top of Mount Prospect, and if you can't tell by my slightly heavier breathing and my glistening appearance, it was a pretty decent incline to get up here. And as we've been doing these day hikes on the AT, all I can think about is just the thru-hikers that are going up and down and up and down all day, every day for months carrying heavier gear than we have. It is just so impressive and we just have mad respect for all of the thru-hikers out there. And while we don't necessarily have a desire to do a big thru-hike right now, it's really neat that they do have these sections that you can do as day hikes so you can get a little taste of it. Oh, wow. Yeah, how pretty. Oh, my gosh. So this is Rand's View. It's a meadow that just pops out of nowhere and has a stunning sweeping view of the Berkshires over in Massachusetts. We had heard that this was the best view in Connecticut, and so far it's the best view we have had in Connecticut because we just got here a few hours ago. But I don't know how anything will top this. This is just, it's just magical. This meadow is just begging to be frolicked in. It just feels like the sound of music or something. Not only is there a gorgeous view at Rand's View, but there's also a pretty awesome waterfall right by the trailhead. So we're going to go check that out before we hit the road. That is epic. That is one powerful waterfall. We do have a couple more waterfalls that we want to check out as we road trip across the state. And next up, we're heading to Kent Falls State Park, which I don't think is going to be quite as epic as this one. This one's going to be really hard to beat, but it should still be pretty cool. Kent Falls cascades about 250 feet before it joins up with the Housatonic River, and I believe this is the tallest waterfall in Connecticut. Since this waterfall has so many levels, they have this pathway you can take that takes you alongside the waterfall and lets you view the different levels from above. I thought we got to the top of it, but man, it just keeps going and going. But wait, there's more. It is a never ending waterfall. I think I read that it runs for about a quarter of a mile. The other waterfall may have had more water, but I loved the height and all the levels and just the forested backdrop of this one. There was just a lot to see here. It totally exceeded my expectations. One thing we noticed when researching Connecticut is that there are a large amount of ice cream shops in the state. It appears to be a very popular dessert here, and y'all know we consider ourselves to be slight ice cream connoisseurs, so we are on our way to go try a spot that many consider to be one of the best ice cream shops in the state. There are over 100 dairy farms here in Connecticut, many of which sell ice cream, and we came to Arethusa Farm Dairy, which is part ice cream shop, part factory, and also a store with some of their other dairy items. They're known for their large scoops, and one scoop is eight ounces, and this looks like two scoops, but it's actually one, and when it comes to ice cream scoops, size matters. Can you believe that this is one scoop? This is so much ice cream. So I got two flavors in my one scoop. I got almond with toasted coconut, and then I asked what the most popular flavor was, and he said sweet cream with chocolate chips. Mmm, that is so creamy. Super good. The sweet cream and chocolate chips may be their most popular flavor, but I think the almond one wins for me. I just love the flavor of almond extract, and it is bursting with it. We stayed at a Harvest Host Farm last night, and this morning we drove about 45 minutes to Ragged Mountain Memorial Preserve, which is one of the most recommended and popular spots to hike here in Connecticut. This part of the state is known for its trap rock ridges, which are a step-like landscape of ledges and steep ridges, and we're hiking the Blue and Red Blazed Loop, which is about 5.6 miles and gains 843 feet. We're only .8 miles into the hike, and we've already made it to our first viewpoint of Lower Hart Pond, and just look at this. There's so much water off in the distance, these really cool tree-covered peninsulas, and just mountains all around, and you may notice that it's a little hazy out today, and I think that's because some wildfire smoke from Nova Scotia blew in overnight, so it's not the clearest of days, but thankfully we can still see something. This trail is pretty rugged, there's some steep parts. We have been really impressed by the views on this hike, and Connecticut in general, when we thought of Connecticut, we always thought of cities and things to do along the coast, and we just didn't realize there were views like this in Connecticut. Alright we've had a slight change of route plans, we feel like we've seen all the best views on this hike, and we are getting very, very hungry, so we've decided to take a shortcut to get back to the van quicker. We aren't 100% sure what trail we're on right now, I think it's the yellow trail, but we do have offline maps downloaded with AllTrails Plus, so we're going to be able to find our way just fine, and we'll make sure to put our route in the description below in case you want to go this route as well. Let's go eat! One of our goals today is to try two iconic Connecticut food items, and first we've headed to Ted's Restaurant to try a steamed burger. A steamed burger is a ground beef patty that is formed into a tray and put into a custom steamer for a few minutes, and then topped with steamed cheese and other toppings. First impressions, I don't know if you can see it on the camera, but I can definitely see all the steam coming out of here, and it definitely looks different than a regular burger. There's no grill marks or things like that, but it still looks pretty dang good. Oh I see the steam now. Whoa. It might not look like it because it's not dripping, but it is super juicy. Your mouth just fills with the meat juices, but it is really good. You definitely taste like, you mostly taste like the ground meat, which is good, and then all the cheese. The cheese is ooey gooey and fonduey. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Okay, my turn, my turn. The juice from steaming it just stays in there. Wow. We came into this thinking that we would 100% prefer grilled burgers, but I don't know anymore. This is still steaming. Yeah, it's still hot. We also came into here thinking we wouldn't get fries because we have another food item in a bit, but how do you say no to Cajun fries with all this melted good steamed cheese on it? Oh my gosh. We have made it to New Haven, which is one of the largest cities in Connecticut, and you may have heard of it because of the very famous Yale University. I don't know if anyone else likes to do this or not, but we love walking around university campuses and just envisioning what life would have been like had we gone somewhere else, and this might be the most prestigious and historic one we've been to yet. It was founded in 1701, making it one of the oldest universities in the United States, and it is one of the eight Ivy League schools, which were almost all founded during the colonial period. Something else interesting about Yale is that it's split into 14 residential colleges, and each one has its own dorms, dining facilities, fitness facilities, and its own traditions, and they even compete against each other in intramural sports. Between that and the gothic architecture, this place feels a little bit like Hogwarts. Besides Yale, another thing New Haven is famous for is pizza, but not just any pizza, a New Haven style called a pizza, which is based on a Neapolitan dialect. New Haven is a pizza hotbed because many Italians settled in the area, and New Haven style pizza is a twist on Neapolitan and is known for being a thinner, crispy, but also chewy crust that is cooked at a high heat, traditionally in a coal oven, with a good amount of char. And when it comes to New Haven style pizza, there are three original pizza shops in town, Sally's, Modern, and Frank Pepe, which all started in the 1920s and 30s, and it is a huge debate of who has the best. We spent way too much time trying to decide where to go, but after scouring the internet for all the opinions, we're going to, drum roll please, none of them. We're actually going to a spot called Zappardi Zabitz, which is technically located in West Haven, but we hear it is one of the best New Haven style pizzas around. Zappardi started in 1934 when Dominic Zappardi, an Italian bread baker, started making abits, and it's been family run ever since with his grandchildren and now great-grandchildren running the restaurant. We got two different pizzas, and the first is a white clam, which is a New Haven special. It has fresh garlic, olive oil, herbs, and little neck clams. So this pizza is a huge reason why we chose this place over the others. They are the only place that shucks each clam to order, and everyone, well, almost everyone says it's the number one place to get a clam pizza. And I've actually never had a clam before in my entire life, so I don't know, we'll see if I like it. Mmm, it's crispy, it's so garlicky, and the clams aren't bad. They don't really taste fishy to me, the texture kind of makes me know that they're a clam, but the crunchiness of the crust, I can handle the kind of clam-y texture, but man, that garlic, mmm, I love garlic. I'm really shocked that I'm eating clam right now. Me too. Mmm, I got a big bite of clams there, and they have a really big flavor, I don't know what to describe it, maybe it's an umami flavor because it's from the sea, but yeah, you can really taste all the garlic, the olive oil, all those herbs, and thin pizza like this is definitely my favorite. I like it when it's crunchy, I like it when it's crunchy and thin, oh yeah, oh yeah, this is like some of the best crusts I've ever had, a pizza, I'm here for it. We also got pizza with moots, aka mozzarella, you actually have to ask for that here, because a standard pizza will just come with red sauce, and then we added their homemade fennel sausage because I hear it is incredible. Mmm, the sauce is nice and thin, and just has amazing flavor, it's so cheesy. You come here, get the one with the sausage, the sausage is so good, so herby, and tons of flavor. There's a party in your mouth. It's a zapati in here, it's a party, it's a party. We also heard that you had to get your beats with a Fox and Park soda, which is a making soda in East Haven since 1922, and we got their white birch flavor, which smells just like root beer, to me it tastes just like root beer, but according to Google, it's kind of a minty flavor as well. It's good whatever it is, it's real good. Fun fact, Connecticut is home to two out of the three largest casinos by square footage in the United States, and we're headed to the Mohegan Sun Casino for the night, not to gamble, but to sleep. Since being out East, we've stayed at a lot of rest areas, Walmarts, Cracker Barrels, a few paid campgrounds, and some Harvest Hosts, and sometimes another free option you have on the road are casinos. Every casino that we've stayed at has been a little bit different, but the way this one works is that you park in a parking lot across from their employee gas station, you call a number, security comes over, they get some information, and they give you a permit, which I believe lets you stay here for up to seven days, which is probably how long we will be here. We have a few spots that we want to check out today, and first we're making a quick stop at Devil's Hop Yard State Park, which is home to the beautiful Chapman Falls. One interesting thing about these falls is that there are round indentations caused by rocks caught in eddies. These rocks would swirl and swirl, creating a hole, and when that rock would wear down, another rock would take its place and make the hole bigger. Nowadays, we know how this happened, but a legend says that early settlers thought the devil passed by these falls and got his tail wet, it made him so mad that he burned holes in the stone with his hooves as he stomped away, hence the name Devil's Hop Yard. Alright my queen, let's go to our castle. Welcome to Gillette Castle. This castle was built in 1919 by William Hooker Gillette, who is known for being the first person to play Sherlock Holmes on stage. Technically it's not a castle, but a 24 room mansion that looks castle-esque that overlooks the Connecticut River. The Gillette Castle cost one million dollars at the time to build, and took 20 men five years to complete it. It's made out of local field stone, and the exterior is super interesting, it almost looks like the stone is dripping. Inside the castle there is tons of woodwork and so many small details thought of, like a chair on wheels to not scratch the floor, and wood that dangles from a table to act as a toy for Gillette's cats. There are 47 wooden doors which all have one of a kind puzzle locks, secret doors, and even hidden mirrors so that Gillette could spy on his guests and play pranks or time his entrances. And one prank he is known for playing is with his bar, which had a tricky locking system that even stumped Albert Einstein. As you can see you can go inside the castle, they have a self-guided tour but have staff members stationed all throughout the house to give you all the fun facts, unfortunately no filming was allowed, only photos, but we highly recommend going on the self-guided tour. Photos just don't do it justice, just how creative and intricate and just interesting William Gillette was. I would love to go back in time and just be one of the guests at his house that he was spying on and playing tricks on, he just seems like such a unique person. You know we had to get a lobster roll while in this part of the US so we came to a spot called Captain Scott's Lobster Dock which is a stand right on the water. Last time we were up in New England we had lobster rolls in Maine and we tried both the Maine and Connecticut style. We loved both but we especially liked the Connecticut style and you know we have to try it while we're in Connecticut. With Connecticut style the lobster is served warm with a drenching of warm butter. We got the small because lobster is expensive and the description is accurate, it is pretty small. And then they asked if we wanted extra butter on the side and I channeled my inner Paula Dean and I said heck yes. Cue the sexy butter drippage, oh baby. Alright now that it's swimming in butter, let's go for this. Oh my gosh, that's so buttery. It might be small but they packed a lot of fresh, juicy, tender, delicious lobster on there. The lobster tastes so fresh and of course I drenched all that butter on it so it's salty and buttery. But one of my favorite parts about lobster rolls are the buns here. You can see it's perfectly toasted, it's also pillowy too. I love lobster rolls, they're expensive but they're worth it, they're so good. For our final stop on our Connecticut road trip we're in the incredibly charming coastal village of Mystic. Many of you may know of Mystic from the 1988 movie Mystic Pizza but there is a lot more to the town than a famous pizza shop. Mystic has long been one of the most important shipbuilding yards in the U.S. and there were over 600 ships built here over 135 years starting in 1784. It's also home to an over 100 year old bascule bridge that has two 230 ton concrete counterweights on each side and it is so mesmerizing to watch. And to learn more of its maritime history we're going to visit the Mystic Seaport Museum. The Mystic Seaport Village is the nation's leading maritime museum. It is home to over 500 ships, a museum with a working shipyard, an exhibit halls, plus a seaport village. There is a lot to explore here. I am so overwhelmed looking at this map, where do we begin? Alright we decided to conquer the Seaport Village first which is a recreation of a 19th century seaport village. There are tons of trade shops and businesses from the 1800s including blacksmiths, coopers and wood carvers. And apparently every building was used as a shop or business back in the 1800s and was transported to the Seaport Village. The first heat made it thin, the second heat made it round through here, the third heat made the little loop and then quenched that. Then I could hit on it to make the hook and then I could hit again to squeeze it and then I quenched this whole thing so it didn't move and then I put that back bend in it so it would hang straight. We love museums like this where you can walk around at your own pace and walk in and they are actually doing stuff. We just went to kind of like a blacksmith shop and in a place like that and all the other ones you just realize how much you don't know how to do and how much knowledge and skill that people just 100 years ago, 200 years ago had. Without Google. Without Google, without like modern technology, YouTube, anything and you just kind of feel kind of dumb. They like overload you with information and it's so cool. The museum has four national historic landmark vessels, the most notable being the 1841 whale ship Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaling ship left in the world. This ship is so big inside, it truly feels just like a house on the water. The beds in these rooms look very short, I didn't think I would fit in them but apparently on this sign it says they're over 6 feet so. But the doors and the ceiling are 100% not tall enough for me. Alright, we really enjoyed our time in Connecticut but it's time to set sail and head to Rhode Island. Let's just say, let's just say what I'm doing right now is a slight spoiler, but we'll be doing there. Alright, bye! Well our time in Rhode Island didn't really go as planned. We arrived in the state on a beautiful sunny day and spent the morning walking around Providence which was amazing. We also got to try an iconic food item, hot wieners and the state drink of Rhode Island, coffee milk, but we weren't filming those days. We planned to film a fun day in Newport which is a beautiful coastal city that's supposed to look like this, but this is what the weather was like for us most of the day. We waited for over 7 hours for the weather to clear up and it thankfully eventually cleared and we were able to go on an amazing sunset sail that we had alluded to earlier. But besides that, we didn't have enough good weather to make a video we were proud of or do Newport justice and due to having other commitments plus just the difficult logistics of van life out east, we couldn't stick around for any longer. So unfortunately, we cut our Rhode Island video. Which is always a very hard decision and we were super bummed about it, but we're still counting Rhode Island as a state we have visited because we did a few things off camera and honestly, that's the most important thing anyways that we get to experience things in real life and we'll just have to come back someday to make a video. So for now, we're off to state number 49, our final state in this part of the US, Massachusetts and we're going to finally visit a city we wanted to visit for years and no weather is going to stop us. You know we had to get a lobster roll while we were in this- Diane, go get your food. Oh my god. Terry? It's the moon two times now, Terry. The Berkshires are alive at Rand's View. Moats. Yeah, but I think it's moats. Give me the moats. Put lots of moats on that. Okay, Joey? Okay. All right. Adam's name thing is talking like he's like a mega Italian from like the Jersey Shore or something. Shove the pie in your face, bitch. All right. I want a slice with lots of moats on it. Oh my gosh.