The Best Things to Do in Boston
On a perfect spring day, Boston turns into a giant walking tour. The city's top attractions tend to spill over from one to the other, inviting visitors to just keep going. On other days? Well, luckily there's the T. For one of America's most celebrated walking tours, walk the Freedom Trail, which takes you to 16 sites central to American history, including the Massachusetts State House and the Paul Revere House. Another perfect day outside: walk the sites of the Emerald Necklace, including Boston Public Garden and Boston Common. Then head to Fenway Park to see the Boston Red Sox play (the Green Monster awaits). No matter your interests, make sure to spend some time along Boston Harbor, home to the New England Aquarium, and the Charles River. They're the lifeblood of Boston. And, of course, no Boston trip is complete without a visit to one of the city's many excellent museums, from the Museum of Science to the Museum of Fine Arts and everything in between.
1 Science Park, Boston, MA 02114, USA
Home to some 35 colleges and universities, Boston is a wicked-smaht city, and you’ll feel like a genius if you take your kids to the always entertaining Boston Museum of Science. For sheer thrills, nothing beats the museum’s Van de Graaff...
25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Degas, where art thou? That’s a question the staff has been asking at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum since 1990, when thieves made off with 13 of the museum’s most valuable pieces, worth an estimated half a...
4 Yawkey Way, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Nothing defines Boston quite as much as the town’s devotion to sports (10 championships since the turn of the century doesn’t hurt), and with all due respect to the five-time-Super-Bowl-champion Patriots, it’s Fenway Park, not Gillette Stadium,...
217 Jamaicaway, Boston, MA 02130, USA
Baseball had nothing to do with the naming of Fenway Park: The stadium gets its moniker from the nearby Back Bay Fens, a stretch of saltwater marsh in the heart of Boston that was landscaped into a park by Frederick Law Olmsted. The Fens are among...
1 Central Wharf, Boston, MA 02110, USA
A Caribbean coral reef in Boston? You’ll find it at the New England Aquarium, as part of the aptly named Giant Ocean Tank, which contains 200,000 gallons of water and is swimming with sharks, sea turtles, barracuda, and hundreds of other reef...
Hull, MA 02045, USA
The past two decades have seen the dozens of islands scattered across Boston Harbor transformed from barely noticed dots on the horizon to one of the city’s most popular attractions. The Boston Harbor Island National Recreation Area, established...
Mile-long Newbury Street, lined with handsome 19th-century brownstone homes, is synonymous with shopping in Boston; it's also the place to go to get your hair done up nice. Between Arlington Street and Massachusetts Avenue you’ll find an eclectic...
1 Seaport Ln, Boston, MA 02210, USA
465 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA
If you love art in all its many forms, the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston is a 'must-see' destination. They have a great collection of Impressionism and Asian art works, from Monet and Van Gogh, to Chinese furniture and Japanese paintings, as...
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA 02109, USA
Who wouldn’t trade an ugly elevated highway for a ribbon of new parkland? Boston’s famous Big Dig dismantled the eyesore John F. Kennedy Expressway that long separated downtown from its waterfront and turned most of its former route into a linear...
44 School St #250, Boston, MA 02111, USA
26 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
In addition to being the nation’s most prestigious university, Harvard operates more than a dozen museums, from the unusual (the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments) to the intriguing (the Semitic Museum, with more than 40,000...
308 Congress St, Boston, MA 02210, USA
The Boston Children’s Museum knows a thing or two about keeping kids amused and entertained—it's been doing it for more than a century. An unmissable landmark on Fort Point Channel (look for the giant Hood milk bottle), the museum has an eclectic...
4 S Market St, Boston, MA 02109, USA
Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125, USA
The assassination of Boston’s favorite son is burned into the memory of most Americans who lived through that tragic moment in history, but the JFK Presidential Library and Museum is a celebration of John F. Kennedy’s life, not his death. Housed...
