XP from Travel Board - Hi! My hubby and I are hitting Boston, arriving Thursday night and leaving Sunday morning. We have tickets to the RS/Yankees game at Fenway on Friday night, but I am trying to arrange our itinerary in the meantime (kind of a last minute trip). I obviously want to do the Freedom Trail but don't know if I should do a Freedom Trail Foundation Tour or do it on our own. Should we continue the Freedom Trail and make it up to the USS Constitution?
Is the Duck tour worth it or is it just a tourist attraction?
Should we try and fit the JFK museum/library or MFA in a two day trip?
Anyplace interesting we should check out in Cambridge?
Thanks!
Re: Highlights of Boston for a 2 day trip???
I'd just do the Freedom Trail on your own if you want to save money. You can walk it in a couple of hours, so taking your time and checking out all the 'stops' along the way would be a bit longer and nice. I did it with friends last fall who hadn't been to Boston before and they didn't regret not paying for the tour.
I do recommend doing the Duck tours though, if you want to splurge on those. And do it before you walk the trail, then you can take the knowledge you gained from the tour and see some of the stuff more up close on the walk.
I just did the duck tour with some friends who visited for a weekend from out of town and it was a lot of fun, but you don't get to see too much up close. I think I really prefer walking around to see things better.
You could try to catch a tour of Fenway too.
I've been told there's a self-guided tour of the Freedom Trail that you can download to your iPod, but I've never looked it up. That might be a good compromise between completely DIY and a guided tour.
People usually love the Duck Tour. I think the suggestion to do that before doing the Freedom Trail is a good one.
Whether the JFK Museum or the MFA are worth it is up to you and your priorities/interests. Both are top-notch institutions and absolutely worth it if it's what you're in to.
In Cambridge I think a walk around Harvard Yard and Harvard Square is fun, but only if you have the time and it might not be on the top of my list for a two-day visit.
Oh I totally forgot about that - the people we were showing around Boston had an iTouch and they downloaded that app. It was really cool because it told a little blurb about each 'stop' along the way. If you have an iTouch or iPhone I definitely recommend downloading that and walking the trail yourself.