The Inn Crowd

The Inn Crowd, a title from our new collection of books from Phaidon, is full of people who looked at their past life career, and their old city, and decided a guesthouse upstate solved both problems at once.

Bobbi Brown did it. So did a former J.Crew menswear head, and the woman behind the American Girl doll, who's now assembling an entire village of them.

You don't have to buy the inn to justify the trip. You just have to be scouting — a very reasonable, very research-based reason to leave the sweaty city behind and drive two hours north, notebook in the passenger seat, no real plan beyond seeing a few of these places in person.

Call ahead, or don't. Order the coffee. Sit on the porch and take notes, mentally, on whether you, too, could do this — already deciding which fancy French soap goes in every guest bath, which handmade cups get demoted to toothbrush holders, whether the towels should be that specific shade of clay or just white, always white. You probably won't. But why not daydream a little? In that spirit, we've compiled a few easy weekenders to cross off the list for anyone who lives in or near New York.

Sharon, Connecticut

The timid cousin of Litchfield County — all stone walls, no crowds, and a decent chance you won't see another car with city plates.

Cambridge, New York

A one-street town near the Vermont border that, against all odds, has a world-class bakery worth the drive on its own.

Woodstock, Vermont

Postcard-perfect covered bridge, a green you could set a movie on, and just far enough that it feels like a real trip rather than a day out.

Marblehead, Massachusetts

Rocky coastline and sailboats, minus the Cape traffic. Park the car and forget you own one.

Kent, Connecticut

A gallery scene that punches well above its population, plus a waterfall five minutes off Main Street if the porch-sitting gets old.

Chatham, New York

Sleepier than Hudson, twenty minutes closer to nowhere, with a diner that hasn't updated its sign since the seventies and hopefully never will.

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

A former coal town turned Victorian mountain village, with a river gorge that does a fair impression of the Poconos' better side.