How to Time Your Trip to Boston

Boston, a city with a rich historical past and cultural heritage, has been in the process of a renaissance for the past decade, returning to its former glory as the "cradle of Liberty" and "Hub of the World." A city of a zillion colleges, Boston is an entertainment and arts mecca, boasting an enormous variety of musical venues, theaters, museums and sporting events.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Travel Clothes
• Local Guidebooks
• Maps
• Travel Guides
• Airline Tickets
• Travel Services
• Cameras
• Film
• Maps
• Cameras

General Considerations

1. See Boston at its best in the late summer, before the students flood the streets again. Winters here are erratic and prone to occasional blizzards. Average low in January is 22 degrees F and average high in July is 82 degrees F.

2. Pick up the Boston Phoenix Weekly for all entertainment and leisure activity listings.

3. Twist and bend your way down Boston's old and confusing roads. The chaos caused by the reconstruction at South Station adds to this general feeling of being lost all the time. Take the Red & Green lines (trains) when possible and pick up a detailed street map.

4. Check the weather before disembarking for the capital of New England. It's a crapshoot, so bring a seasonal spectrum of clothing and if you don't like the weather, as the locals say, "just wait a minute."

Attractions and Seasonal Events

5. Take in a baseball game at Fenway Park, the St. Peter's Basilica of baseball. Maybe the long-suffering, always-finishing-second Red Sox will be in the throes of a pennant race.

6. Check out the wonderful collection at the Museum of Fine Arts or the mind-boggling aquatic array at the New England Aquarium. The Boston Museum of Science is also a fun and stimulating way to spend an afternoon with the kids.

7. Explore the streets, cafes, book emporiums, pedestrian areas and nightclubs of Cambridge. Don't miss Harvard University's Widener Library, which will impress every sort of bookworm and architect.

8. Climb the Prudential Building ("The Pru") for the best views of the sprawling Beantown metro area.

9. Sing, skate, and dance along if you visit around Christmas. Boston puts on a Yuletide hootenanny that would make St. Nick proud. There's the legendary Nutcracker Ballet, the Boston Pops performing "The Night Before Christmas," the top-notch city Symphony Orchestra and much more.

10. Don't miss Boston's Chinatown; the New Year's celebration in late February is a wonder to behold. Enjoy the strange delicacies hanging in restaurant windows while a 16-legged dragon twists and whirls among the din of fireworks.

11. Drive 40 minutes to Salem, home of the Witch Trials, psychic mysticism and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The town is old and eerie and the mania and tension surrounding the 17th-century trials is still palpable.

12. Get scared out of your wits the Salem Witch Museum; on Halloween you might feel Joe McCarthy's ghost breathing down your neck. Then jaunt over to the House of Seven Gables within the cobbled village that is one of the most preserved and prettiest in America.

Tips & Warnings

• On St. Patrick's Day, Boston throws a rollicking, roving party. There's a parade celebrating Boston's Irish heritage, and celebrants turn the dirty water of the Charles green, lift their Guinesses, and make (and quickly forget) lifelong friends.
• Consider avoiding Boston in the early fall when school starts. Marauding, drunken college students can make this city extremely unpleasant - unless that's your scene.
• Boston drivers live up to their reputation as total "Massholes," so bring your airbag and your rubberneck and let it all hang out on the 128.
• Don't look for a semblance of what used to be Boston Celtics championship basketball. The Boston Garden has been leveled, the parquet floor shipped off to the Hall of Fame, and the Celts haven't seen a winning season since Larry Bird retired.