Connecticut is a small state that can be crossed in a matter of hours, depending on traffic, offering relatively easy access for travellers looking to visit various corners of the state.


Here are five free things to do and see there.



The Submarine Force Museum on the Thames River in Groton is home to the Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered vessel and first ship to reach the North Pole. It's the only submarine museum operated by the US Navy and is the primary repository of artefacts, documents and photographs related to the history of submarines in the military. The museum traces the development of submarines, from the so-called Turtle, the first American submarine developed for use in the Revolutionary War, to today's Ohio and Virginia class submarines.

The museum's collections include tens of thousands of artefacts, documents and photographs. Its reference and research library holds 6000 volumes.






Hammonasset, Connecticut's largest shoreline park, offers a boardwalk and more than 3.2 kilometres of beach. Parking is free from mid-September to April 20. But even during the season when a parking fee applies, visitors can find parking in nearby downtown Madison for free and bike the 3.2-kilometre route east on Route 1 to Hammonasset.

Madison is known for Madison Art Cinemas, a movie theatre in downtown that opened in 1912, and R.J. Julia Booksellers, one of the better-known book stores in Connecticut.








The materials document more than 11,000 years of the area's past. Collections include a large sample of Connecticut Indian stone bowls, reconstructed pottery vessels, groundstone tools, a 3.6-metre-long dugout canoe carved from an American chestnut tree, Mayan and other Central American Indian artefacts such as stone tools, woven hammocks and skeletal remains.

- AP