Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads is the name for a body of water and the land areas surrounding it in southeastern Virginia. The cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach are part of the Hampton Roads region. This is Virginia Tidewaters country where Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. The English settled here in 1607 and named the area after England's third Earl of Southampton. With four hundred years of American history steeped deeply into this area there are literally hundreds of historical sites to visit: battlefields, cemeteries, historic houses, churches and museums. The Colonial National ...

Hampton Roads is the name for a body of water and the land areas surrounding it in southeastern Virginia. The cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach are part of the Hampton Roads region. This is Virginia Tidewaters country where Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. The English settled here in 1607 and named the area after England's third Earl of Southampton. With four hundred years of American history steeped deeply into this area there are literally hundreds of historical sites to visit: battlefields, cemeteries, historic houses, churches and museums. The Colonial National Historic Park, a 23-mile scenic parkway, connects Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg and Yorktown, the site of the last bloody battle of the American Revolutionary War in 1781. If your interest runs to historic houses, two plantations that pre-date the Revolutionary War and are open for tours are: Belle Air Plantation, built in 1670, is one of the oldest wood frame houses in America, Berkeley Plantation was the site of the first official Thanksgiving as a holiday in 1619 and is the birthplace of our ninth president, William Henry Harrison. This is an area with abundant outdoor activities ranging from hiking, walking and biking along trails, to lakes and rivers for fishing, canoeing and kayaking, to ocean beaches.

About the Expert

Frances Folsom is the author of CitySpot Palermo, a contributor to the Reiskits guides to Milan and Italy's Lakes Region, and Thomas Cook's Independent Traveller USA.