December 2016 we took a trip back East to visit Boston and New York City. Yes, I realize it’s been over a year since our trip and I’m just now getting around to blogging about it. But hey, this blog thing took awhile to get up and running again and I still want to document all of our travels and share all of the ins and outs with you! It was fun to relive our traveling while putting these posts together!
Our trip came about because we bought tickets to see the New England Patriots play at their home field in Foxborough. We are big football fans; more specifically big fans of the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers. And because we were flying across the country, we decided to make the most out of our time and spend a couple more days in Boston and then road trip over to NYC (my second time, and Travis’s first!). We arrived in Boston in the evening of December 2nd and left December 7th (2016), so we had 4 full days to explore all Boston has to offer and had so much fun! This was my first time in Boston and Travis’ first time really exploring the city. Before, he had made a trip to Boston for racing. In hind sight, two Californians visiting the East coast during dead of winter probably wasn’t the brightest idea, but it was fun experiencing winter (vs this 65-85 degree weather we call “winter” here in Southern California).
This is the first of 5 posts I will write and publish documenting our trip back East. This post will be all about Boston; where we stayed, how we got around, and what we did. I’ll write the same post for our time in New York. And, because we are big foodies, I’ll also publish two posts about all the things we ate in Boston and New York. Our last post will be a budget breakdown of how much money we spent on the trip in total (spoiler alert we saved over $1,500 using points!).
WHERE WE STAYED IN BOSTON
We stayed at the Hyatt Regency in Boston Harbor mostly because it was considerably cheaper than the hotels in downtown. The hotel was directly across the harbor from downtown, and conveniently located close to the airport. We even splurged and upgraded to a room with a view of downtown and it was still cheaper than hotels in downtown Boston, so I think we won out on this deal. The hotel was nice and clean, the staff was always kind and helpful, and we loved that they had hot apple cider for the taking in the lobby each morning made from apples grown locally to the region. It was also very convenient that they had shuttle service to and from the airport where the subway station was. They also had water taxis right outside the hotel that would shuttle people from one side of the harbor to the other, but we never took one.
HOW WE GOT AROUND BOSTON
Like I said above, our hotel wasn’t in downtown Boston, so we were concerned about getting into downtown. We knew that Boston had an extensive subway system in town, but we weren’t quite sure how we were going to get from our hotel, across the harbor, and into downtown each day. When we landed, we took the hotel shuttle from the airport to our hotel and we learned that it makes stops at the subway station at the airport along the way for free. SCORE. So, each day we took the hotel shuttle to the train station at the airport, and then from there we took the subway into downtown. The subway system has Charlie Cards that we ended up getting and reloading them with money when needed; instead of purchasing individual tickets each time we wanted to get on the subway. Charlie Cards are free, you just have to ask any Customer Service Agent at select subway stations for one. Boston has a great public transit system, and we took full advantage of it to get anywhere we were going. It even goes up to Cambridge and down through South Boston. The subway system is also connected to the train system that can take you into neighboring states.
READ MORE ABOUT THE BOSTON SUBWAY SYSTEM HERE: www.bostonusa.com
WHAT WE DID IN BOSTON
PATRIOTS GAME
The main reason for our trip back East was to see the Patriots play at home in the Gillette stadium in Foxborough. The way our schedules worked out, we actually ended up seeing the Patriots play against the LA Rams. Seeing as how we are from Southern California, the irony is not lost on me. We took the “Brady Train” into Foxborough with thousands of other Patriots fans. The train ride was about an hour long and is literally set up to take you directly from downtown Boston to Gillette stadium for the game. We had so much fun! The weather was a bit colder than I would’ve liked, but being surrounded by nothing by Patriots fans, while watching our favorite players play football in their home stadium was un.real.
Funny story, we bought our game tickets a couple months in advanced through a second hand seller site and didn’t receive a link to download them right away. As our trip was approaching I was getting more worried that the main reason we were taking our trip to Boston was going to be ruined (not to mention all the money we just might have got scammed out of)! The day before the game, we reached out to the third party website to express our frustrations. They turned around and gave us tickets with much better seats than the tickets we had originally purchased. Needless to say we had a great time, only after my mini panic attack!
JOHN F KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
We made a visit to the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. We got there about 2 hours before they closed on a week day, and we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. The museum starts with a short video presentation of Kennedy’s pre-presidential life and then the museum walks you through different exhibits filled with memorabilia and short video presentations depicting his campaign for President, his time in office, and ending with his assassination and legacy. The museum was beautifully done and included re-creations of his desk in the Oval Office, and also displayed different pieces of furniture the Kennedy’s furnished the White House with. I’ve always been a fan of Jackie Kennedy and her elegance, and was thrilled to see displays about her personal life, and role as first lady too! This last minute decision to visit this museum might’ve been my favorite thing we did in Boston (besides the Patriots game of course!). Also, there’s a free shuttle that takes you from the train station stop directly to the museum that we didn’t know about until after we walked the mile and a half from the train station to the museum (but we definitely took advantage of it on our way back).
READ MORE ABOUT THE JFK MUSEUM HERE: www.jfklibrary.org
FREEDOM TRAIL
The Freedom trail is a 2.5 mile red bricked trail that runs through downtown Boston. It starts at Boston Commons Visitor Center and ends at the USS Constitution. We split this up and walked it over two days. We rushed the last 1/2 mile that included Bunker Hill and the USS Constitution because it was getting dark out. If/When we make it back to Boston I would like to spend a little more time exploring the USS Constitution. There are museums and historical sites along the Freedom Trail; some that cost money to visit (Paul Reveres house) and some that don’t cost money (the town hall where Bostonians met up to discuss the Boston Tea Party). We opted out of the sites that required a fee to enter, and took advantage of the ones that were free to visit. There are options to walk the Freedom Trail with a tour guide, but again opted out of that and walked it at our own pace. Boston holds a lot of history and by walking the Freedom Trail we were able to see a lot of it.
READ MORE ABOUT THE FREEDOM TRAIL HERE: http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/index.html
I know the above photos are blurry, but they are some of my favorites. After a couple hours of walking the freedom trail we came across a church. At this point we were delirious because we were exhausted, probably hungry, and definitely tired and had already seen a handful of churches. We set up my phone to take a timer picture, while we were sitting in a pew, with the front facing camera open (hence the grainy-ness of it). As it was counting down to take the picture, my phone was slowly sliding off of where we propped it up at, so we slowly shifted with the phone to still fit in the frame of the picture!
BOSTON PUBLIC MARKET
The Boston Public Market is an indoor marketplace full of vendors selling all kinds of locally sourced produced goods from cheese and fish, to fresh bread and baked goods. According to their website, everything sold at the Market Place is either produced or originates in New England. So awesome! I love to check out the local food scene anytime we travel, and this was a great way to experience a big chunk of Boston’s local food scene all at once. We walked around for a while and ended up buying some cheese, salami and fresh bread.
READ MORE ABOUT THE BOSTON PUBLIC MARKET HERE: https://bostonpublicmarket.org
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
The Boston Public Library is a stop that can’t be missed. A quick google search and I found out that it’s the second largest library in the US (behind the library of Congress). It’s situated in Copley Square, right across from Dig Inn (one of my favorite places to eat in Boston)! The library is free to enter and walk through. Parts of it were undergoing construction at the time we made our visit, but it was still gorgeous nonetheless. My favorite part was the Renaissance inspired courtyard in the middle of the library. Another cool part is the Bates Reading room; I would love to go to school in Boston just so I could curl up with my books and spend an afternoon in this room. Even if you aren’t big on books and reading, you need to make a visit for all the art and architecture this building has to offer.
READ MORE ABOUT THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY HERE: http://www.bpl.org
MARY BAKER EDDY LIBRARY
We made a visit to the Mary Baker Eddy Library to see the Maporium; a three story, stained glass globe that you walk through via a 30-foot bridge. I found out about this place from one of my college friends who had visited Boston a couple months earlier. The globe depicts the world as it was in 1935; which was the last time they painted and updated it. The acoustics are pretty rad. If you stand at one end of the bridge and whisper, the person standing at the other end can hear you as if you’re standing right next to each other! There is a $6/person entry fee into the Maporium, but it’s worth it in my opinion! There are no pictures because photography wasn’t allowed inside the Maporium, but the link below has a few pictures.
READ MORE ABOUT THE MARY BAKER EDDY LIBRARY HERE: https://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/project/mapparium/
HARVARD
“Look Ma! I went to Harvard”! One afternoon we took the train across the water to Cambridge to visit the Harvard campus. We downloaded the Harvard Official Mobile Tour on our phones and did a self guided tour at our own pace. Although, with more time and planning it would’ve been nice to go on a student led tour and get a students perspective of the campus. It was fun to walk around the different buildings and see Harvard square before heading back to Boston. It almost made me want to go back to school to pursue another degree..almost..
TOUR APP WE USED: https://www.harvard.edu/on-campus/visit-harvard/tours/mobile-tour
Salem Witch Museum
On our way out of Boston, after we rented a car to drive to NYC. We drove North about 30 minutes to visit the Salem Witch Museum. It was a cheesy over priced museum that told the story of the Salem witch trials through staged mannequins and a voiced over recording set up in a theatre. In hind sight, we could’ve passed this part of our trip up.
READ MORE ABOUT THE SALEM WITCH MUSEUM HERE: https://www.salemwitchmuseum.com
Elise’s favorite thing we did: Besides the Patriot’s game, JFK museum!
Travis’ favorite thing we did: “The Freedom Trail because we got to walk all around Boston and see a lot of different things”
After this trip, Boston has become one of my favorite cities (right behind Paris)! And it’s no wonder, the architecture of the homes on Beacon street in Boston resemble those in Paris. We loved that Boston was an easy city to explore by train and foot! We will definitely be back, maybe in the Spring next time.
Be on the look out for my post about what we ate in Boston!
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