Things to do around Boston and surrounding area?

[goldfishgirl]

Hi everyone - I'm new to this board and hoping you can help. My husband and I just booked our plane tickets to Boston this fall (last week of September) and we're trying to plan some ideas of things to do. We are staying with good friends of ours, and they live near a train station, so that will be our primary mode of transportation (they have cars, but will be working during most days). We are thinking about possibly renting a car for a day or two if we decide to drive to Plymouth or Salem, etc.

Anyway, do you have recommendations of things to do in downtown Boston, or surrounding areas? We've tossed around the idea of driving to Providence, RI at some point too if we have time. Are there any seasonal things we could do that time of year? Restaurants? Our friends recently relocated to the city, so they are still new and learning the area too.

Thanks!

[5kcandlesinthewind]

Rock, you should make that a sticky on the Boston board, so you can just link to it.

It's a train to a bus with a bit of a walk if you don't have a car, but if you're willing , I highly recommend Castle Island over in South Boston - it's one of my favorite spots in the city. Grab some food at Sully's, take a walk around the fort, and just hang out and watch the planes fly overhead.

If you're looking to go outside of Boston, Walden Pond over in Concord is really nice in the fall. You'll probably be too early for leaf-peeping, but it's still worth a trip. While you're over there, you could scope out the Orchard House (home of Louisa May Alcott) or Emerson's house, and then scoot over to Lexington for the battle sites/Minute Man park. And the sculpture park at the DeCordova Museum (also in Lexington) is pretty cool, as well.

Salem should actually not be too bad in late September - a lot better than mid-to-late October, at least. We went out there on a Saturday roughly around the same timeframe, and it was crowded, but not insane.

[goldfishgirl]

Thanks! Those are some great lists! I will definitely be printing it out and taking it along

[cricketwife]

Just wanted to add that you are going at a really great time of year for the whale watching tour. I would not miss that.

[travelingjen]

Lots of great recommendations here! When my sister and I visited Boston together a few years ago we loved seeing the Orchard House and wished we had had more time to devote to Concord as it's a very lovely town. We also LOVED the Plymouth Planation but we are both history nuts and found the living history portion of it fascinating. Salem was interesting but we happened to be there the weekend before Halloween so it was insanely crowded.

Within Boston, I really enjoyed walking around the Beacon Hill neighborhood and the JFK Museum is still one of my favorite museums to date.

[goldfishgirl]

Thanks everyone - these are great suggestions!

[countthestars]

If you are around the weekend of the 29th, I've heard really great things about Waterfire in Providence waterfire.org/schedule/2012-2/

I'll also add that we love to eat at Fire & Ice (there are a few locations) www.fire-ice.com and I liked grabbing cupcakes at Kickass Cupcakes in Somerville www.kickasscupcakes.com/ and at Lulu's cupcakes in the North End luluboston.com/

The Rose Kennedy Greenway is a nice park to walk through