Only a Short Time to Take it all in….part II

The Freedom Trail

Now that the airfare is confirmed it’s time to reserve hotels right? Not quite yet. At least that is not my order of planning. My next step is to spend a little time researching what sights I want to see and activities I may want to do. This allows me to find hotels closer to the places I want to spend time at helping eliminate transportation time and possibly costs. Also, if there is something that you want to accomplish while in your place of destination but require reservations in order to assure you get to do it such as a Red Sox game at Fenway or watch the Celtics in the TD Garden you have a little head start on others giving you a better chance to do that activity. In our case it was eating at the Union Oyster House. We probably could have made it in there without the reservations but we may have had to wait and spend more time to get in taking away from other sights.

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Since Boston is such a historic city we definitely wanted to visit it’s past. A very quick web search brought up the Freedom Trail which included most of the places we wanted to see. Looking over each sight on the Freedom Trail we prioritized the list because there are so many stops on the trail and there wasn’t enough time to really see all of them and have time to do other things. One of my other high priority stops was the Bull & Finch pub used as the basis for the hit comedy Cheers. Now that I know what sights we wanted to see I searched for hotels closer to those destinations and figured out modes of transportation while in Boston. Boston has a pretty good train network allowing you to get around to many of the key places. Also, take it from me, driving in downtown Boston is quite stressful due to the traffic and narrow streets.

*Money Saving Tip: Many hotels will give you a reduced rate if you book them online and pay for them in advance. This can save up to 20% if you know that is where you will be staying. Be warned, once you pay in advance there is no canceling these reservations.

For us, we chose to stay in one hotel for a couple of days and on our last night move to a different hotel which provided a shuttle to the airport the next morning. Taking some time to plan what we wanted to do in Boston allowed us to see what we wanted and do what we wanted. Each hour was not planned but just a general idea of things to do that day. The exception was dinner reservations which had a finite time. Knowing your goals ahead of the adventure can help fulfill your needs for your vacation which does require a little bit of research and planning.

The Union Oyster House

To Read further on exploring Boston check out these pages:

Visiting Cheers

The Freedom Trail