Touring New Hampshire’s Covered Bridges In The Mazda CX-5 Crossover

Aside from a horse-drawn wagon, Mazda’s CX-5 is the perfect family vehicle in which to tour some of New Hampshire’s prettiest destinations.

New Hampshire has quite a few covered bridges built as far back as colonial days. There is a lot of local history around these bridges, and the state does a great job of making that information available at each stop. The bridges are even numbered so you can check them off your list as you tour each year.

Two great places to begin a covered bridge tour in New Hampshire are Henniker and Keene. Having seen many of the bridges in Henniker, we opted to start our trip in Keene. To see where the bridges are located, simply use Google Maps. Input “Covered bridges near me” in the search bar. The app will map them out and tell you how far each is from your present location.

Those who are fans of biking should note that there is a bike route to tour the bridges.

On our trip, we drove a Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring crossover. The CX-5 can now incorporate Google Maps directly using its Android Auto or Apple CarPlay connectivity. For those owners of CX-5’s without this technology, note that the 2014 through 2019 model year Mazda CX-5s can be updated to have this technology.

We used both the CX-5’s own navigation and the turn-by turn directions from Google Maps so that our navigator could plot the next bridge location, while the driver listened to the directions. The CX-5 has a head-up display, which makes it easy to keep one’s eyes on the road ahead. Safety first!

We found the Mazda CX-5 was a joy to drive on New Hampshire’s back roads. With plenty of twists and turns, and lots of elevation changes, the driving is enjoyable. New Hampshire is unique in New England in that its speed limits seem to have been set by someone with a love of the open road. They are nicely high enough to make the drive exciting.

Would we have preferred a Miata on such a trip? Sure, and we’ve done exactly that. However, we had our nine-year old along for the ride. She kept herself occupied between bridges with her own device, using the CX-5’s handy rear power ports.

If you have toured New England with a specific theme in mind, please tell us in the comments below. We are always looking for new ways to test and try out vehicles.

John Goreham is a life-long car nut and recovering engineer. His focus areas at Torque News are technology, safety, and green vehicles. He has been touring New Hampshire's back roads for over thirty years. You can follow John on Twitter, and view his credentials at Linkedin

All images except infotainment image depicting Apple CarPlay by John Goreham. Re-use with permission only. Mazda infotainment image courtesy of Mazda media support.