Dustin and I visited this cute town at the end of February and were very impressed. Lots of cute shops, restaurants, and pretty views of the water! We were there for a half of a day and it was great! We would like to go back and spend the night to be able to try some more restaurants, coffee shops, and of course some of the wine bars!

Getting there

Portsmouth is about an hour drive from Boston. You can also take a bus to get here if you don’t drive! I found tickets for about $20 one way, so $40 round trip on this website, here! We have found that our days run 100% smoother if we have details like parking figured out before we get somewhere. So I did some research and ended up parking in the High Hanover parking garage and it was a short walk to get to the middle of the shops. It cost $1.50 an hour to park here and I think we paid about $8 overall and that was plenty of time! We just put the address into the GPS and it took us right there!

What to see

SO. MANY. CUTE. SHOPS. There were wine shops like La Belle that had tastings and cheese pairings when we were there. There was a salt cellar that I couldn’t stop taking pictures of(see below) that had so many cute things in it! Also if you didn't know this about us… we are huge game people! We play board games all the time, this game store was where we got Villainous and we are HOOKED. We always like going into these game stores because there are so many options and games that you never knew were even available. Plus they have some sitting out for you to try before you buy. They had plenty of boutiques with something for everyone and all ages. I think that sometimes you can visit a town and all of the shops have the same things in them and that wasn’t the case at all, which we loved!

Where to eat

River House - YOU GUYS, this place is so good! I don’t say that foods are life changing often.. but their clam chowder was LIFE CHANGING. So buttery, so creamy, so delicious. Did I mention its GF?! I got the California Burger and Dustin got the lobster roll. But if you only go there to get one thing it has to be the clam chowder for sure!!

Cup of Joe - The perfect place to stop and get your coffee before heading into the shops! They also had some options for breakfast and lunch but we jut stopped for a coffee! They also have a Starbucks if you like to get the “you are here” mugs that they sell, like we do!