The Unofficial New Hampshire Tourism Guide, Pt. 1: Introduction

New Hampshire, the Granite State, home of moose, bears, and comedy treasure Adam Sandler. A fine place to live, and an even better place to visit. Many residents of Massachusetts view New Hampshire as the big northern wasteland where they go skiing. New Hampshire is more than just a forest where people fight bears, though, and this is the first of a series of articles aiming to show the best that the state has to offer.

This won’t be an ordinary, “authorized” or necessarily “correct” guide to New Hampshire. This is the underground, no-B.S. guide to the TRUE New Hampshire. For instance, some might tell you that our capital is Concord, our governor is Chris Sununu, and the Old Man of the Mountain was just a rock formation. These are all lies. Our true capital is Manchvegas, our governor is a moose named Ragnarok who wears a crown on each antler, and the Old Man? There’s going to be a whole article about him.

Our motto is definitely “Live Free or Die,” though. That’s too badass to be made up.

Here are a few of the frequently asked questions I receive as a New Hampshire native:

Is New Hampshire a real state?
New Hampshire was the first state! Most people claim it was the ninth, since it was the ninth to ratify the Constitution, but we had our own State Constitution before any other state. We might have been first, but other states do it better. We really probably should have seatbelt laws.

Wait, New Hampshire? There’s nothing to do there.
That’s not really a question, but there’s a lot to do in New Hampshire! From skiing to snowboarding, hiking up a mountain to hiking down a mountain, there’s plenty of outdoor adventure to be had.

How come New Hampshire and Vermont are 69ing?
When two states love each other very much, they’re allowed to do whatever they want, geographically. Just be glad most cartographers don’t draw the finer details of our western border — the ground there is really sticky.

What’s the state bird?
Please do not ask any questions about the state bird.

Is it true that there are no seatbelt laws in New Hampshire?
We are particularly well known in the region for having no sales tax or seatbelt laws. This is because rules are for suckers and taxes are for the weak. This is not necessarily the opinion of the author, but rather what is written in the New Hampshire State Constitution.

Tune in next week for a story on the burgeoning craft beer scene in New Hampshire!