BOSTON · MASSACHUSETTS
Cobblestones, the harbor, and the cradle of liberty.
Freedom Trail walks and harbor cruises, Duck Tours and lantern-lit ghost crawls, North End cannoli and whale watching out past the islands. Every good day in Boston, and the New England roads beyond it.
Only here
Three days out you can only have in Boston.
City walks and food tours happen everywhere. Tracing the Revolution along a painted brick line, touring Harvard Yard with a student, and standing under the Green Monster at the oldest park in baseball do not.
Where the country began
The Freedom Trail
A line of red brick runs two and a half miles through downtown, past sixteen sites where the American Revolution caught fire: the Old State House, the site of the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere’s door, the Old North Church. Follow it with a guide and you walk the founding of a country, one cobblestone at a time.
- 1 Boston: Freedom Trail History Small Group Walking Tour
- 2 Boston Freedom Trail Walking Tour with Costumed Guide
- 3 Boston Food & History: Pizza, North End & Freedom Trail
The most famous campuses on earth
Harvard & MIT
Across the Charles in Cambridge sit the two universities the whole world has heard of. A current student walks you through Harvard Yard with the stories the brochures leave out, then it is a short hop to MIT’s great dome and its restless inventor energy. Nowhere else lets you tour both in an afternoon.
- 1 Cambridge: Harvard University Student-Guided Walking Tour
- 2 Harvard University Campus Guided Walking Tour
- 3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Public Tour
The oldest park in baseball
Fenway Park
Opened in 1912 and still home to the Red Sox, Fenway is the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball. A guided tour puts you in the grandstand, up beside the 37-foot Green Monster in left field, and down on the warning track. For a century of baseball in one small green box, there is nothing else like it.
- 1 Boston Fenway Park: Guided Ballpark Tour with Options
- 2 Tour of Historic Fenway Park, America’s Most Beloved Ballpark
- 3 Boston: Boston Red Sox Baseball Game Ticket at Fenway Park
Start here
If you do one thing, make it this.
More Boston trips are built around this outing than anything else on the list.
Where most people start
Boston's Most Popular Tours
The Freedom Trail, the Duck Tours, the harbor cruises and the trolley loop. The days most visitors come to Boston for.
Where to begin
The trips a Boston weekend is built around.
The Freedom Trail, the harbor, the North End food crawl, the ghost walks, the trolley loop and the day trips out of town. The handful of outings most visits are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The first thing to plan
How to walk the Freedom Trail.
Two and a half miles of red brick run from Boston Common to Bunker Hill, past sixteen sites where the country began. Three ways to do it, depending on your legs and your clock.
The North End
Dinner ends in a cannoli argument.
The oldest neighbourhood in Boston is its Little Italy, and Hanover Street still runs on red sauce and rivalry: Mike’s Pastry against Modern, the back-lane salumerias, the espresso bars where the old guard hold court. A food tour walks you between the counters that locals still argue over, past Paul Revere’s front door.
Read the guide: the best North End food tours →After the lanterns come out
The city gets older after dark.
Four centuries make for a lot of ghosts. After sundown a guide with a lantern leads you through the colonial burying grounds, the gaslit lanes of Beacon Hill and the old taverns, telling of grave robbers, pirates and the long shadow of the Salem trials. The oldest city in America wears its hauntings well.
See the ghost & lantern tours →The harbor
The city that threw the tea in the water.
Boston grew up facing the sea. This is the harbor where the Tea Party happened, scattered with thirty-odd islands you can sail out to, where humpbacks feed at Stellwagen Bank ninety minutes out and the lighthouses still blink at dusk. The best view of the skyline is from the deck of a boat heading back in.
Harbor cruises & whale watching →Day trip · 45 minutes north
The town that put witches on trial.
In 1692 the village of Salem hanged nineteen of its own for witchcraft, and the town has been reckoning with it ever since. Tour the Witch House, the only standing structure with direct ties to the trials, walk the memorial, and feel the place tip fully over the edge come October. A short train or coach ride up the coast from Boston.
- 1 City Cruises Salem High Speed Ferry to/from Boston
- 2 Boston: Salem by Boat – Witch Trials & Walking Tour
- 3 Day Trip from Boston To Salem Witch Exhibits
Plan by distance
Pick how far you want to go today.
Boston is a hub. Spend the day in the old city, cross the Charles or run up the coast to Salem, or commit a full day to the Cape and the islands.
In the city
Stay in Boston.The Freedom Trail on foot, cannoli in the North End, the cobblestones of Beacon Hill and a ballgame at Fenway. Days you never leave the city.
Over the river, or up to Salem
Cambridge or Salem.Harvard Yard and MIT just across the Charles, or the witch-trial town of Salem 45 minutes north. Gone after breakfast, back for dinner.
A full day there and back
Out to the Cape and islands.The beaches of Cape Cod, the Mayflower at Plymouth, or the ferry across to Martha’s Vineyard. The big days that need an early start.
Last call
Drink where the Revolution was plotted.
Boston’s bars are older than the country. The Green Dragon, where the Sons of Liberty hatched the Tea Party. The Bell in Hand, pouring since 1795 and the oldest tavern in America. The Sam Adams trail and the brick cellar pubs of the North End — a pub crawl here doubles as a history lesson with a head on it.
See all 10 pub & tavern tours →By place
The city, and the roads out of it.
Downtown for the Freedom Trail and the harbor. The North End for the cannoli. Beacon Hill for the cobblestones. Cambridge for Harvard and MIT. Salem for the witch trials. Martha’s Vineyard for the ferry day out.
By activity
Pick what kind of day you want.
A history walk if you want the story. A food tour if you want to eat the city. A harbor cruise if you want the skyline from the water. A ghost lantern if you want it after dark.
Plan it
Three days that cover the essentials.
First time in Boston? Here is how three days plays out without a wasted hour.
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