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 and brewpubs 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.