Beauty on the Border: New York, Vermont, Quebec and Montreal

Full disclosure: I'm cheating a little by calling this "day one". We flew into New York City the night before and drove up half-way to stay the night. Getting here, you can do the same. It is about a three-hour drive from NYC to Saratoga Springs, which is doable but makes for a long day after a flight. Also consider flying into Albany or Hartford, Connecticut.

Wherever you start to hit the road, definitely stop in downtown Saratoga Springs. Broadway is the main drag, and it is filled with tons of shops, restaurants and window-shopping opportunities. We also had a nice stroll through Congress Park and Saratoga Spa State Park, both of which are nearby. We could have stayed here longer, but this is a road trip so we needed to keep heading north. So we hit the road for Lake George, New York, as our stop for lunch. It was relaxing watching the large boats and paddle boats on the water. We had lunch at Lighthouse Grill, a newly renovated nautical-themed restaurant that was the perfect perch to watch the water activity. We continued on another two hours to Burlington, Vermont, for the night.

We woke up early to explore the gorgeous town on the shores of Lake Champlain. It is simply beautiful here during the summer. A great way to see the town is on bikes. We went to the Local Motion bike rental next to the Amtrak station and rode bikes along the lake via the Burlington Greenway. With perfect temperatures and a light breeze off the lake, we could have rode our bikes for hours! And we did! We went out to a causeway, which was about eight miles from the town center. We biked back to Church Street, the walkable center of town, for some ice cream at Lake Champlain Chocolates. I had maple butter pecan with maple syrup on top. It seemed like the "local" thing to order. For dinner, we went to Bleu Northeast Kitchen on Cherry Street, across from the lake. The food was excellent and there was a fun live band playing in the bar area. I highly recommend the grilled broccolini with lemon and chili vinaigrette.

It's about a four-hour drive from Burlington to Quebec, not including the border crossing. Depending on the time of day and year, it could add some significant time to your trip.

When we got into the city, we immediately wanted to walk around and get our bearings. We took the funicular down to the Old Town. It really is like traveling to Europe — the stone streets and steps, the architecture — it is beautiful. We stumbled upon an art installation of colored umbrellas hanging over a side street.

Later, we went back up the funicular and headed over to the Plains of Abraham. From there we wandered down Cartier Street, which had lots of fun shops and restaurants and cool illumination art hanging from above. We ended our journey at the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac, which is exceptionally gorgeous, inside and out.

We had a quick breakfast near our hotel at Cafe Maison Smith and then headed back to the car for a day trip outside the city to Montmorecy Falls. You can park at the lower area or upper area — both spots have impressive views. If you are okay with heights, I definitely suggest walking across the suspension bridge to get your adrenaline pumping. From there we drove to Ile de Orleans, which is a gorgeous country drive, and we stopped at the beautiful Vignoble de Sainte-Pétronille winery for a tasting and outdoor lunch. It had an awesome view of Montmorecy Falls from the patio. We continued driving to the tip of the island and stopped for Quebec's famous dipped soft-serve ice cream at Chocolaterie de l'Ile d'Orleans. It was amazing and messy, but definitely worth the stop.

We were off to our last stop of our road trip, about a three-hour drive away. We arrived at our hotel, the Hyatt Centric, which had great views of the entire city and St. Lawrence River. And it came with the coziest robes I've ever experienced at a hotel! We opted to do the hop-on/hop-off bus tour to maximize our time and see Old Montreal, Downtown and Mount Royal. We did some shopping on St. Catherine Street. For a quick and easy lunch, we found the TimeOut Market, which was a high-end food court. With some time to kill before dinner and a beautiful day, we spent time on the 14th floor pool deck, enjoying the view and the sun. For dinner, we wanted some French food, so we tried Modavie, because it was also featuring live jazz. It was delicious with a cool ambiance. An after-dinner walk took us down Rue Saint-Paul, the oldest street in the city.