Eats, Cruises & Leaves

A trip to view foliage in late autumn doesn't have to mean endless games of license plate bingo and constant pit-stops for cranky kids, just to see acres of orange and yellow blow past the window of a speeding car.

Try something new this fall. See the leaves change from the deck of a boat.

Foliage cruises have been around for decades, but over the last 15 years, they've grown exponentially, piggybacking on the overall growth of the cruise industry, especially the move toward "home ports" and launching cruises from places other than Florida. Since the World Trade Center attacks, the cruise industry has capitalized on the tendency to travel closer to home by running more and more cruises from people's backyards.

"Consumers had concerns with jumping on planes, so it was just easier for them to drive into Baltimore or drive into Boston and board one of these ships," said Terry Dale, president and CEO of Cruise Lines International Association. "It's really come along in the last four to five years. We have 30 ports of call in North America."

To take advantage of the spread of home ports, cruise lines have been adding ships and setting off for European summer sunsets and Caribbean winter escapes. But during the fall, when cruise demand tends to dip, operators need a place for their returning boats to dock. And so, an increasing number of operators have placed ships where travelers are already going -- locales where the changing leaves are the big draw.

Nowhere has the growth of foliage cruises been more dramatic than in New England, which is not only a hotbed of autumnal action, but has a number of active seaports, making it easy to plan itineraries that have a lot to offer. Over the last year, according to CLIA's data, the number of days cruises were at sea increased more than 9%, but in a New England and Canadian market dominated by foliage cruises, that number is up nearly 35%. Since 1989, the Northeast has seen a six-fold increase in capacity.