In 1996, a week before the birth of our child, Jake, I received a copy of the first book I authored, Outside Magazine's Adventure Guide to New England. I had spent the entirety of the prior year traversing the region in every season as I sampled the many trails, bike paths, rivers, lakes, and Atlantic Ocean as much as humanly possible, hiking two mountains a day if I could. Honestly, I couldn't get enough of the outdoors, gleefully paddling down remote rivers or mountain biking deep in the woods and laughing out loud that I'm getting paid to do this! Little did I realize, it would lead to a very rewarding career as a freelance travel writer, writing more than 2,000 articles, and working on another 8 books. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of my first book, I did a deep dive into the hundreds of stories I've written on the region for The Boston Globe, Yankee Magazine, Boston Magazine, Boston Herald, and many other publications. I distilled those stories down to their essence, eliminating fat, while updating and revising the copy. The result is what I believe is a definitive guide to the region, New England in a Nutshell.Instead of authoring a typical guidebook, I resorted to my favorite form of journalism, the round-up article. Perhaps it's my background as a chemical engineer, but I appreciate lean, succinct writing, especially when it comes to something as pragmatic as a guidebook. I want to get to the point quickly and tell you my favorite fall foliage routes, lobster shacks, art historical finds, and more than 50 other topics in this book. There's no better way to deliver this material than in short form so you can quickly peruse the subject and get there as soon as possible. Rest assured that these are my favorite picks, the one percent that made the cut. For example, I have visited over 1,000 inns this past quarter century in New England and I've only included my top 12 in that chapter.