Swist,
That's what I meant by no shopping; I should have said it specifically. My grandparents used to have a cottage up there (on Mousam Lake, actually, which is why I used that as an example) and we often brought a week's worth of food with us, just to save time. But of course we were driving, just as most lake cottage visitors would be driving today; the idea of anyone using the Downeaster to get to a quarantined cottage rental and bringing their food with them for more than a day or two is pretty unlikely. Then again, the owner/manager of the cottage could do a big shopping trip for the renter beforehand; I rented a house once where they did that for firewood, bottled gas, milk. So I think the only special infrastructure needed for cottage rentals would be some method of remote payment for the cottage and for groceries, and some way of getting in without handing off a key, such as one of those key boxes with a code that real estate agents and self-serve cottages in Scandinavia use. But of course this is all only relevant to this thread insofar as it concerns cottages near enough to the train to walk and with some private outdoor area to have fun in without being out in public -- so not that many choices.
That's what I meant by no shopping; I should have said it specifically. My grandparents used to have a cottage up there (on Mousam Lake, actually, which is why I used that as an example) and we often brought a week's worth of food with us, just to save time. But of course we were driving, just as most lake cottage visitors would be driving today; the idea of anyone using the Downeaster to get to a quarantined cottage rental and bringing their food with them for more than a day or two is pretty unlikely. Then again, the owner/manager of the cottage could do a big shopping trip for the renter beforehand; I rented a house once where they did that for firewood, bottled gas, milk. So I think the only special infrastructure needed for cottage rentals would be some method of remote payment for the cottage and for groceries, and some way of getting in without handing off a key, such as one of those key boxes with a code that real estate agents and self-serve cottages in Scandinavia use. But of course this is all only relevant to this thread insofar as it concerns cottages near enough to the train to walk and with some private outdoor area to have fun in without being out in public -- so not that many choices.