Connecticut

The place

One of the original 13 · ratified 1788 · Eastern time

Connecticut is small, old and quietly rich, a state of stone walls, insurance headquarters and towns that were arguing about their commons before there was a country. It wrote a constitution in 1639, a century and a half before the federal one, and has been reminding everyone since. The shoreline reads as New England and the western hills read as an extension of New York. Go for New Haven, which has the pizza, the Yale galleries that are free, and more genuine grit than the state gets credit for.

Called the Constitution State for a document written in 1639, a century and a half before the federal one.