Our 2nd trip of the year – Boston! I keeping with our current vacation planning goal to visit and experience new places, we planned out a long-discussed road trip to the Boston area. Nums and I have both been to the general Boston Massachusetts area, but neither of us has ever taken the opportunity to see the city in detail. I looked into Amtrak, in order to make it really interesting, but ticket prices were cost-prohibitive and train arrival/departure timings didn’t work for us. For this three day Memorial Day weekend, we would be making the 4 hour drive to Boston.
Our general road trip plan was to head out Friday morning, try to see some interesting points of interest along the way, and walk the streets of Boston after dinner. In reality, we left later than planned, grabbed dinner in North Jersey, and our 4 hour road trip took over around 7-8 hours due to Memorial day Weekend traffic. If it wasn’t the high volume traffic slowing us down, it was the number of the alternate routes we took on local roads to avoid recent accident sites. We did see some cool areas with lakes, a dam, and vacation homes in the Connecticut area.
We arrived in Boston sometime after 7 pm, tires and hungry. Electing to eat dinner before checking into the hotel, we drove straight to a Bonchon Chicken in the Boston suburbs. After a hearty meal, we drove to the hotel, parked, and checked in. We were staying at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Boston Downtown in Chinatown across the Tufts Medical Center.
After a simple breakfast Saturday morning from the Starbucks in the hotel lobby, we took a cab to the Green. We walked through on our way to the Visitor Center to begin our guided tour of the area. I forget the guide’s name but he was dressed in character (as someone who lived through the American Revolution. The tour was really cool as we learned more about the American Revolution, and learned more of how Boston was founded. We enjoyed learning about the city, despite the heat.
We finished the tour at crowded Faneuil Hall, where we grabbed lunch (not me, because I was feeling ill.) Afterwards we walked around some more, then took a hop on / hop off trolley around the city. We stopped at the U.S.S. Constitution to take a tour. Afterwards, we jumped back onto the next trolley to the Charles River to try to catch the last boat tour. For dinner, we ate along the riverside at Rowes Wharf Sea Grille.
Sunday was a bit overcast but cooler. We drove and parked close by the Boston Tea Party museum. This was easily the kids’ favorite activity of the entire trip. We participated in a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party, complete with playing roles in a guided tour / play, throwing tea overboard, etc. It was pretty cool, and our tour guide was very entertaining. We later walked to Faneuil Hall to see the Cheers bar, and buy some souvenirs (including a shirt to keep me warm!)
Afterwards, we took a drive outside of the city for dinner at a Mexican bar, then watched The Jungle Book at the movie theater at the mall. After all that saw and accomplished the day before, Sunday was a really nice day to keep it simple and relaxing.
Monday morning arrived and it was time to get on our way home. We looked at a few things to try to do along the way for Memorial Day itself, but it seemed many towns along I-95 were cancelling their parades on account of impending rain. We did our best to get home without too much delays, but we still encountered traffic. With a short lunch stop in Connecticut, we made our way home without too much grief.
We had a great trip overall. So much history in Boston. Frankly, I’d love to go back to see more, and to try out some of their bars.
[simpleviewer gallery_id=”109″]