United States

Boston

  • Population:~4.9M (metro)
  • Timezone:ET (UTC-5/-4)
  • IATA:BOS

Overview

Boston is the historic capital of Massachusetts and the cultural heart of New England — one of America's oldest cities and the cradle of its Revolution, where the red-brick Freedom Trail links the sites of 1776. Walkable and European in feel, it pairs colonial history with Beacon Hill, the North End, Fenway Park, great museums and the universities of Harvard and MIT.

Travel

Boston is the rare American city you can see properly on foot, and the rare one where the history is not kept in a quarter but runs straight through the working downtown. Founded in 1630 and the place where the American Revolution actually happened, it marks that story with a red-brick line set into the pavement — the Freedom Trail — which threads sixteen sites through streets full of office workers, students and traffic, so you meet a 1770s meeting house between a coffee shop and a construction site. That mixture is the character of the whole city. Around the trail sit neighbourhoods with genuinely distinct personalities: gas-lit Beacon Hill, the Italian North End, the Victorian grandeur of Back Bay, and the glass-and-water Seaport that has grown up in the last twenty years. Add a serious museum bench, two of the world's best-known universities across the river in Cambridge, the oldest ballpark in baseball, and a deep Irish-American inheritance, and four days fill without effort. Boston is also the front door to New England, with Cape Cod, Salem, Plymouth and the autumn foliage country all within easy reach — and autumn, when that foliage turns, is when the region is at its most spectacular and its most booked.

Boston's defining experience is the Freedom Trail, a 4-kilometre (2.5-mile) walking route marked by a red-brick line in the pavement that links sixteen of the city's most important historic sites, telling the story of the American Revolution where it happened. Starting on Boston Common — the oldest public park in the United States — it leads past the gold-domed Massachusetts State House, the Granary Burying Ground (resting place of Paul Revere, John Hancock and Samuel Adams), the Old South Meeting House where the Boston Tea Party was set in motion, the Old State House overlooking the site of the Boston Massacre, and the bustling Faneuil Hall, the “Cradle of Liberty”. It continues into the North End to the Paul Revere House (the city's oldest building) and the Old North Church of “one if by land, two if by sea” fame, then over the river to the Bunker Hill Monument and the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides”, the world's oldest commissioned warship afloat. Walkable in a day (self-guided or with costumed guides), the trail is a superb, vivid introduction to both Boston and the birth of the United States — history made tangible in the middle of a living city.

Frequently asked questions

The Freedom Trail is a 4-kilometre walking route through downtown Boston, marked by a red-brick line in the pavement, that links sixteen sites central to the American Revolution — from Boston Common and the Massachusetts State House to Faneuil Hall, the Paul Revere House, the Old North Church and, across the river, the Bunker Hill Monument and USS Constitution. It's the city's signature experience and absolutely worth doing: walkable in a day, free to follow (some sites charge admission), and a vivid, tangible way to take in both Boston's history and the founding of the United States.

Diplomatic missions in Boston

5 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.

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