In June, 2019 (those good-old pre-pandemic days), my husband and I traveled to New England so I could do some location research on the book. I wanted to model the fictional town of Penbrook after Mystic, Connecticut so we flew from Orlando to Hartford and then drove to the coast.
The movie Mystic Pizza, which launched Julia Roberts career, put this town on the map. 
We really enjoyed the great food, shopping and the old-style Mystic-river drawbridge that’s a must-see attraction in itself. We visited the Seaport Museum during the annual Sea Music Festival which was amazing since we were entertained by lots of sea shanties and whaling songs.
The Seaport Museum has four National Historic Landmark vessels, including the Charles W. Morgan, America’s oldest commercial ship and the last 
wooden whaleship in the world. I highly recommend visiting this living museum which took us back in time. From there we drove to New Bedford and visited the Whaling Museum in the heart of the old town with cobblestone streets, where Herman Melville once walked and lived. This provided lots of rich information for a chapter of my book that takes place in New Bedford.
After that we drove to Cape Cod and spent several days in Chatham and Falmouth. To this day, my husband says visiting the Cape was one of his most memorable travel experiences. The Cape is rich 
with history, beautiful winding roads and white sandy beaches with cliff-like dunes. We walked along the beach at Wellfleet where the Whydah Shipwreck occurred and not far from where Maria Hallett lived as she waited for her lover, the pirate Black Sam Bellamy to return home.
We also visited the Whydah Galley Museum which houses the largest collection of pirate artifacts recovered from a single shipwreck anywhere in the world.
In Provincetown, we went on a whale watching tour and got lucky. We witnessed a pod of whales up close as they glided right under the front of our boat where we stood! 
Traveling to New England was a magical experience. Looking back, it’s even more meaningful since it was one of our last major pre-pandemic trips. I’ll savor those memories and look forward to returning soon.
