How crowded is Newport in mid-August?

My friends and I are interested in visiting Newport on the weekend of 8/11/2006. I know it happens to be the weekend the Jazz Festival is taking place - how crowded will be Newport be? Is it crowded to a point where a visit would not be relaxing one?

Also, we plan on staying in Providence; I%26#39;d sincerely appreciate it if people could let me know the expected drive time from Providence to Newport given the traffic.

Thank you very much in advance for your replies.

Warren

How crowded is Newport in mid-August?

The drive time all depends on the traffic, really. I am going to say an hour or so. If you are planning on going for the day, I would say head out early, like 9 am as you will also be hitting beach traffic heading to south county if it is a nice day. I wouldn%26#39;t be so concerned about the crowds in Newport as the parking!! If you head in early you should be ok. Let me know if you have any questions I can try to answer for you.

Brenda

How crowded is Newport in mid-August?

HI

I agree with Brenda. The parking will be hard to do if you don%26#39;t leave earlier enough. There are all sorts of back streets, side streets and even parking lots that will charge as much as $20.00 for the day. It will be an extremely busy weekend but a lot of fun. If you have never been to Newport, you will love it...Very beautiful ocean scenery and great places to eat at. Hope this helps.

Take the ferry from providence to ferry...it%26#39;s cheap...you won%26#39;t have park and the ride is beautiful.

http://www.ripta.com/schedules/ferry.php

I agree, take the Ferry or the bus. Then you won%26#39;t have to worry about parking which stinks at that time of the year. But Newport is so fun regardless of how busy it is. If you want to relax you can just take your time sitting on a stone wall eating some Ben and Jerry%26#39;s or you can hit up one of the bars in the evening. Either way Neport rocks.

I have been to Newport twice with my mate who has been there dozens of times. She, too, warned me about the parking over and over again. Let me tell you complaints of parking problems are greatly exaggerated. It%26#39;s all relative: I was born and raised in Midtown Manhattan and to me Newport was a piece of cake in both July and November.

xp