New Hampshire Seacoast · NH-1A & 1B

All of New Hampshire's short ocean coast in one ride: NH-1A runs north from Seabrook through Hampton Beach, North Hampton and Rye, past Rye Harbor, Wallis Sands and Odiorne Point, and NH-1B crosses New Castle by Wentworth by the Sea before ending in Portsmouth's Market Square. It's 21 miles with the Atlantic beside you most of the way. Hampton Beach has crowds and police in summer, the Hampton Harbor bridge is under construction, and beach parking is paid. NH-1B is narrow, with houses right on the road.

New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any coastal state, about 18 miles, and NH-1A follows almost all of it from the Massachusetts line to Portsmouth. Odiorne Point, in Rye, is where David Thomson's party landed in 1623 to found Pannaway, one of the first European settlements in what is now New Hampshire. Today it's a state park with World War II bunkers from the harbor defenses and the Seacoast Science Center. Rye Harbor State Park, a little south, sits on a point between the harbor and the ocean.

On NH-1B, New Castle is the only town in the state built entirely on islands. Wentworth by the Sea, the 1874 grand hotel on its bluff, housed the Russian and Japanese delegations during the 1905 talks that ended the Russo-Japanese War with the Treaty of Portsmouth. The ride ends in Portsmouth, one of the oldest towns in the country, with Market Square and its brick buildings. Beach lots charge in season, the Hampton Harbor bridge is being replaced, so expect waits there, and in summer Hampton Beach moves at walking pace.