ボストンのツアー・観光アクティビティ

Ranked by traveller reviews: 1) a guided Freedom Trail walk, 2) the Boston Duck Tour, 3) whale watching at Stellwagen Bank, 4) a North End food tour, 5) a Fenway Park tour or Red Sox game, 6) a harbor or sunset cruise, 7) the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, 8) the Museum of Fine Arts or Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 9) Harvard Yard and a student-led campus tour, 10) a day trip to Salem.

Two days for the city — the Freedom Trail, North End and harbor, then Fenway, a museum and Cambridge. A third day for Salem, Plymouth or Lexington and Concord, and a fourth for Cape Cod or Newport. Three to four days is ideal for a first visit.

Walk the Freedom Trail yourself (the red line is marked the whole way), Boston Common and the Public Garden, the Esplanade along the Charles, Harvard Yard, the Boston Public Library, Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, the USS Constitution in Charlestown and the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Free concerts run at the Hatch Shell in summer.

Salem (30 minutes, commuter rail or summer ferry), Plymouth and the Mayflower II (45 minutes), Lexington and Concord (30 minutes), Cape Cod and Provincetown (90 minutes by fast ferry), Martha’s Vineyard by coach and ferry, Newport’s mansions (90 minutes) and White Mountains foliage tours in October. See our day trips page for bookable tours.

A sunset harbor cruise, a Red Sox night game at Fenway, a ghosts-and-gravestones tour of the old burying grounds, Italian dinner and cannoli in the North End, a historic pub crawl along the Trail, live music in Cambridge, or the view from the View Boston deck at the Prudential Tower.

Museums are the draw — the MFA, the Gardner, the Science Museum and the Aquarium — plus the Tea Party Museum, Fenway tours and Duck Tours (they run on land in winter). Frog Pond on the Common has ice skating from November, the Public Garden and Beacon Hill look their best under snow, and the North End is cosy for food tours. Whale watching and harbor cruises pause until spring.

The Duck Tour, the New England Aquarium, the Boston Children’s Museum, the Museum of Science, the Tea Party Ships where kids throw tea overboard, Swan Boats in the Public Garden, the Make Way for Ducklings statues, a Fenway tour and a whale watch for children over five.

September and October are the best months: mild days, foliage and all tours running. May and June are pleasant and quieter than summer. July and August are hot and busiest; whale watching runs April to October. Winter is cold but cheap.

Yes for a first visit — the sites are free to walk past, but a costumed guide turns 16 stops into the story of the Revolution in about 90 minutes for around $30–45. Go on your own afterwards for the Charlestown end and the USS Constitution.