I am not going to tell you the name. That is not gatekeeping — three of you would go, tell your friends, and by 2028 there would be an Airbnb listing that says “charming rural retreat 3 hours from Boston.” What I will tell you is that towns like this exist across northern New England, and if you drive an hour off any highway in Vermont or western Massachusetts and pick one at random, you will probably find your version.
What I go there for: quiet mornings, bread that is different from all the other bread I eat because they use a specific local wheat, a general-store owner who remembers your name after two visits, walking paths that go through maple sugar bushes from the 1800s, and evenings where the only sound is dogs, distantly, agreeing about something.
The trick is that you have to be OK doing nothing. There is no museum. There are no events. There is a river you can walk to in 40 minutes and a lookout that is a 90-minute uphill hike. That is the entertainment. If you cannot sit with your own thoughts for three days, this trip will feel like being punished. If you can, you come back rewritten. I have done it four times now. I keep coming back because I keep needing it.