Need experienced comments/thoughts on places in New England [closed]

I'm currently planning a trip with 2 other friends for the beginning of October. We'll be driving all around and may be doing spur of the moment planning, so I just wanted to get a list of locations that would be really awesome for us to visit. Also, I realize this is more of a subjective post, but I didn't know where else to put it.

Some background information:

We're all over 21
We definitely enjoy beer
We love being outdoors
There are 3 of us
We'll be on this trip for about a week
We love trying new food... really any type.
We don't have a budget, but not trying to do fancy everyday.

Ideas/things we're interested in doing:

Magic Hat brewery tour in Vermont
Cape Cod
Investigating haunted places... any ideas on where to go?
Visiting historic places... are there ones that we definitely should see? Monuments, forts, Colonial America places
Kayaking/Whitewater rafting (Heard of cool places in Maine, such as: Pemaquid, Waterville, Kennebec, and Mt. Katahdin)
Cisco Brewers in Nantucket
Hiking/scenery
Camping... any ideas? I was thinking along the lines of national parks.
I know Maine's got to have some cool lighthouses... which one would be the best?
Places to eat... any extremely famous ones?

So yeah, I know this is pretty broad, but I'm basically looking for ideas/reviews of some of the things I've mentioned. New England is a huge place, so instead of Googling for hours (and missing out on some awesome, low-key places), I figured I'd ask y'all to see if there are any great past experiences. Any information would be helpful!

Best Answer

Well, my friends and I did our trip... it was a blast, but a ton of driving. We also planned too many events in such a short amount of time, so a lot of things seemed rushed. Either way, we were not disappointed. Not really sure how to give this as an answer, so I'll just give the major attractions we did.

Loved

Yale, which is a beautiful campus
The drive to and from Gillette Castle was well worth it... just raining leaves on roads less traveled
Ate at Mystic Pizza, which was definitely delicious... not sure if it beats Jersey pizza, haha
Walked around in Boston... saw the Boston Common park and ate at a really cool pub
Lye Brook Falls in Vermont... incredible waterfall at the end of a 2.3 mi trail. Definitely worth it
Visited Omni-Mount Washington Resort in NH, which would be really awesome to stay at... had a great view and just looked like an incredible resort
Ate at Friars' Bakehouse in Bangor, ME... extremely tasty muffins and very cheap
Acadia National Park is incredible... the drive up the mountain is awesome and has an amazing sight at the top, but watch out, it's very windy!
Ate a Lobster Roll at JP's Pub in Westborough, MA... delicious and reasonably priced
The foliage
The architecture of the cities/towns/neighborhoods
Really didn't hit much traffic

Liked

Saw Gillette Castle, which was under construction but still neat to see
Did the Cliff walk in Newport, RI... very touristy but still cool to see tons of mansions and be next to the coastline
Ate at Iggy's Doughboys and Chowder House... delicious chowder
Saw Amherst, Northampton, and Greenfield MA... cool little towns
Went to Mount Sugarloaf in South Deerfield, MA, which has a great view at the top
Franconia Notch's Basin in NH was really cool to see
Bar Harbor was a neat little town
Portland, ME was a cool city... very hip

Disliked

Went to Salem and saw that it was very touristy, so we left
Kind of rained for some of our outdoor events, so we just had to make the best of it
If you wanted to do anything at White Mountain in NH, it cost money, and because it was raining, we opted out of most of those things... would've been really cool to do the Auto Road and hike around
Didn't see any moose!
Providence was insane to drive in, but it looked like an awesome city... unfortunately, it was dark out and raining

Advice

Book hotels in advance... we thought it'd be easy to get hotels the day of... wow, were we wrong
Don't try to plan a ton of events... instead, gather a large amount of events and take your time doing each event (I know, better said than done)
Make sure you prepare for rain
Look things up ahead of time... we were very naive with our entire trip, like not noting when certain places opened/closed/if they still existed

Statistics

Saw all 6 New England states (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine)
Visited 4 out of 6 capitals (Hartford, Providence, Boston, and Concord)
Drove 2400 miles in 7 days