Learn Me Boston

TLDR: Week long vacation in Boston in July. What activities/sights do you suggest?

We are planning a trip to Boston this July. My Uncle and his family live there, so part of the trip is visiting them, but we will be there for a week and would like to see the sights. My wife is a huge history nerd and I enjoy that as well, so a lot of the stuff we are looking at visiting are historical sights and museums. My dad and my 8 yr old niece will also be traveling with us, so we are trying to find kid friendly stuff as well. 

What are the must sees? What should we avoid or is not worth the time? Any car guy attractions in the area? Any food recommendations that aren't seafood? Here are a few things we have found that we are thinking about visiting:

• Museum of Science
• Freedom Trail
• Paul Revere house
• Boston Tea Party Museum
• JFK Museum
• New England Aquarium
• Battleship Park
• LEGOLAND
• Blue Man Group
• Fenway Park tour
• Harvard Museum of Natural History

Possible side trips:

• Plymouth Rock/Plymouth Plantation
• Salem Witch Museum

Thanks for your advice and input!

If you want a great food/beer place, try Lord Hobo.

I've only been there once, training for work. 

Larz Anderson Museum or X1 Outdoors on a race day for car-guy stuff.

Third Stage is awesome...

I'll suggest to take either a duck tour or a hop-on-hop-off bus tour.  They stop at most of the major places to see, and are very interesting.

The Duck tour goes on the water, so you kids should love it.

BTW, Plymouth Rock is remarkably un-inspiring- it's just a rock on the water in Plymouth.  Plymouth is kinda neat, in a touristy kind of way.  Have not been to the plantation, even though we have relatives in close by Kingston.

If you are into history- something I've not made it to is Lexington and Concorde.  I want to go there.

And read some of the history before you go- it will help absorb what you are seeing.  Like the Boston Massacare area, Lexington for the first shot, and Bunker Hill (which actually happened on Breeds Hill)- were the US lost and won at the same time.  Very cool.

Plus- don't forget the Constitution.  It sits in the harbor, and is really cool.  

The list you have is a solid start for the tourist stuff. Some comments and places of note:

-The Larz Anderson Auto Museum is right in Brookline, and is a cool spot. On weekends, they have different themed lawn shows too: https://larzanderson.org/2019lawnevents/

-The Museum of Fine Arts is a must! That place is incredible, and one of my favorite spots in town for historical stuff (I'm a History major myself).

-The Plymouth waterfront is nice, and there are a few good food spots down there. If you like seafood, hit up Wood's on the pier. It's where the locals go; it's nothing fancy or anything, but it's probably my favorite in the area. Plymouth Rock is laughably small. I can hear you saying "That's it?" right now. There's also the Mayflower Brewery there, which I hear is a good spot.

-Salem is mostly a tourist trap these days, but the guided tours are pretty cool. July is a good time to go.

-Cape Cod is boring, a PITA to get on and off of, and the trees are small. WAY overrated. I'd skip it entirely unless you want to see a bunch of nothing.

-The Sam Adams "brewery" in Jamaica Plain is a total tourist trap, but still pretty cool. They only brew experimental stuff there, and I got a growler of something tasty they made for fun for like $5 when I went. Their mass-produced beer is made elsewhere.

-Another brewery outside of town that absolutely rules is Barrel House Z in Weymouth. It's about 20 miles south of Boston proper, but like Lord Hobo, they have really great stuff.

Palmer is a fun track if you're looking for a track day in the area :)   HMS Motorsports North store is about 30 minutes north of center of Boston.  If you need ANY sort of safety equipment, I'd recommend stopping in.  They have like 20 different seats to sit in, different helmets to try on, etc.

I'm assuming your wife will have the historical stuff covered...

Other than that, we always try to hit Mike's Pastry when we're in town.  The Boston Children's Museum is pretty good for that age range, but she's going to be on the upper edge of it.  We were just there and my daughters (9 & 6) enjoyed the chemistry lab and the laser engraver, but I haven't gotten to the Boston's Science Museum yet.

The New England aquarium is a fairly good one, we always enjoy that.  They run a whale watching trip right off the harbor by the aquarium and all of the kids had a really good time with it.  I think we went a bit earlier in the year, but we saw 7 or 8 whales and the kids have been bugging us to go back and do it again.

Children's museum is cool for an 8 year old.  Lots of interactive stuff there.  Its right next to the replica of the Boston Tea Party boat.  July?  Hit Faneuil Hall for some lunch and ice cream, then walk across the street to the aquarium.  In between is one of those water parks that the kids play in.  Water squirts up out of jets in the ground.  Harbor is right there so there is a cool breeze.  From there you could walk to the north end.  Boston isn't very big.  Its conducive to walking around.  If you want to hit Plymouth, do it in the evening.  Fun touristy place to walk around, but for some reason, there are a ton of locals as well.  Lots of dogs on leashes, a mile long breakwater you can walk out on, good but not great seafood, and a great place to just people watch.  The Pilgrim boat is out for restoration, so I'm not sure that will be back by then.  Whale watches are cool.  Plan on doing lots of walking.  Bring a backpack with a lunch and water wherever you go, and have comfortable shoes.  Plan on spending money.  Nothing is cheap around here.  July can be incredibly hot, so plan your day trips based on weather.  If its 90*, go to Plymouth and get out of the city.  Its its cool and overcast, hit the city and stay away from the coast.

Mikes Pastry is totally over rated.  If you like marzipan, go for it.  Otherwise Cafe Paradiso, which is across the street has better desserts.  Giacomo's down the street is fabulous italian food, just bring cash as that's all they accept.

Having lived on Cape Cod for 5 years I totally disagree with Tony.  It's a beautiful place with some nice beaches and fun places to go. 

You gotta go to Fenway for a game!  It's a wild experience!

I agree with Doc about Giacomo's.  I think Lobster Tail at Mike's Pastry is terrific.

Harpoon Brewing is very good.

Oh, and a shameless plug for Legal Seafood.  SIL is a chef there.

If you happen to venture up into NH into spitting distance of Manchester, you should hit up Backyard Brewery & Kitchen (very southern end of the city). Our own member here Golfduke is the brewmaster.  It had been a restaurant since the late seventies that they converted to a brewpub within the past couple years and have been building a great rep since. linky

I went for a couple days and did the hop on hop off bus and enjoyed it. We saw quite a bit and they ran often enough that there wasn’t much downtime.  I also liked the aquarium but I’m a sucker for a good penguin exhibit. We stayed a little ways out of town and took the train in which cut out the aggravation of driving in an unfamiliar city during rush hour.

Plymouth is nice and a few of us fellow GRM peeps are down near there. My friend owns a brewery in the waterfront area of Plymouth. Check it out:

Second Wind

The rock is very small. Salem is awesome and I have friends there too. New Bedford while not a great city (it's come a long way though) has tons of history. Check it out. 

I did the freedom trail. Very cool. Despite that and other attractions, I’ll never go back. Horrid place to drive and full of, well, people from Boston. 

Sorry, that’s all I got. 

Mazdax605 said:

Plymouth is nice and a few of us fellow GRM peeps are down near there. My friend owns a brewery in the waterfront area of Plymouth. Check it out:

 

Second Wind

 

The rock is very small. Salem is awesome and I have friends there too. New Bedford while not a great city (it's come a long way though) has tons of history. Check it out. 

I forgot about New Bedford!. New Bedford has been trying hard in recent years to re-invent itself, and there are some cool spots in the downtown area. My wife and I hit it up on the regular for the antique places, and my favorite burrito joint in the universe (No Problemo Taqueria) is there. There's also the Whaling Museum, and there's apparently a concert venue that has hair metal bands all the time if that's your thing.  Just beware of the other neighborhoods down there, as they can be dicey outside of the downtown area! 

Also, even though I am not the biggest fan of Cape Cod, I still end up down there with the wife once the weather gets nice.  Downtown Hyannis is pretty cool once the weather gets good, as are some of the smaller villages. There is a malaise of fakeness over everything, but if you go along for the ride, it can be fun. 

And yes, the call us MA-Holes for a reason. There are a lot of angry people up here! I want to Double Dragon my way through the city sometimes myself.  Not everyone is like that, but yeah... 

If you want to get out of the Boston metro for a day, heading down to Newport can be very interesting. Lot of money there. I tend to get out of Boston as much as possible as I've been going there for business for years. 

It's a long drive but Provincetown at the end of the Cape is truly an experience to behold in the summer time.  Bring mirrored sunglasses and remember to keep your mouth closed!  Some of the best restaurants in the Boston area are there too.