Lakes Region Hotels With Jacuzzi in Room

Lake Winnipesaukee is the region’s center of gravity, 72 square miles of island-dotted water, ringed by towns that each play the lake differently. Laconia and Weirs Beach run the lively end: the boardwalk arcade, the MS Mount Washington cruise boat, and June’s Motorcycle Week (one of the country’s oldest rallies, and the market’s hardest booking window). Meredith and Center Harbor hold the polished north shore with lakefront inns and whirlpool suites over the water.

Wolfeboro, on the eastern shore, calls itself the oldest summer resort in America and looks it, a walkable village of shops and docks where the couples-and-classic-resort crowd stays. Gilford adds Gunstock’s four-season mountain (skiing in winter, the aerial adventure park in summer), and Plymouth and Ashland cover the western gateway toward the notches.

Summer is the whole show, July and August book the lakefront solid, with Motorcycle Week and the fall foliage cruises as the other spikes. But the shoulders reward the flexible: June before the rally, September’s warm water and thin crowds, and the ski-season stays at Gunstock when a whirlpool suite after a cold day on the slopes makes its case. Winnipesaukee’s winter quiet is its own reward.