The Berkshires · Northern Berkshires

North Adams

MASS MoCA’s 26-building factory campus, mountain trails, and the most ambitious arts-and-cannabis adjacency in western Massachusetts.

North Adams is the city MASS MoCA built — or rebuilt, since the museum repurposed an entire shuttered electrical-equipment factory complex into the largest contemporary-art campus in the United States. A weekend here pulls the museum (a 26-building, multi-day visit if you take it seriously), the surrounding restaurants that have grown up around the campus, and the Mount Greylock summit drive (the highest point in Massachusetts) that starts a few miles south. North Adams's cannabis-retail presence has settled into the broader downtown, and the visitor rhythm for adults 21+ tends to be: museum morning, lunch at one of the spots near MASS MoCA, an afternoon hike or scenic drive, dinner that takes its food seriously, and a quiet evening that respects how much you walked.