The World's Top 10 Aerial Tours
www.katahdinair.com
The Scenery: The gorgeous autumn colors of New England’s broadleaf trees—mostly maples, oaks, birches, and beeches—have drawn crowds of leaf-peepers for decades. And while hiking among the colors (and crunching leaves underfoot) has plenty to recommend it, nothing quite compares to seeing the majesty of whole mountainsides carpeted with fiery shades of red, orange, and yellow.
The Flight: Katahdin Air Service, based in central Maine (along the southern edge of the North Maine Woods), offers scenic tours ranging from half-hour flights to overnight getaways where you’re dropped via floatplane at a lakeside cabin for fly-fishing and canoeing (and picked up a few days later).
When to Go: Early to mid October is the time to go for Maine (if you’re planning to hit the more southerly states—New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts—you can wait another week or two). Since peak foliage weeks vary a bit from year to year, though, check the Weather Channel about first frosts and fall foliage updates when planning your trip.
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