Travel Boston - Part 2
Favorite Things We Did:
We love to travel and we love to take our kids to see new places. There’s nothing better than making memories as a family and creating moments - opportunities for memories that our family will always remember. We try to remind ourselves on the reg that these are the times when we create the moments we will laugh about when we are all old and sitting around the dinner table. These are the moments that our kids will tell their kids about. These are the moments that we will never get back.
Part 1 of the Boston Blog covered the best places to eat, because we are foodies and we love food. This is a list of our favorite things we did and some of the tricks we picked up during our stay.
1 - Boston Ballet:
Exposing your children to culture is just fun. We now put our kids to bed and our son says, “Alexia, play relaxing piano music…” He’s 9. He’s not a nerd. He’s a total baller - baseball, football, basketball…and the kid is cultured. Not because he was born that way, but because of the nurturing exposure we have given him. He doesn’t know this but we’ve given him a leg up on 90% of his completion when it comes to women when he’s searching for his future spouse and he has an ear and love for the arts in a way that I did not at that point in my life. I slept through plays, musicals, ballets, and the orchestra. Dax on the other hand really enjoys it. The Ballet was no different. The theater was beautiful. The talent in the room was unquestionably top notch. Regardless of what is playing, if you are in Boston - go to the Ballet. The Nut Cracker was playing because it was Christmas time and our entire family loved it. We purchased our tickets before hand, wanting to make sure we could get seats all together and printed them before we went. The show was full that night, so anything you can do to speed up your process of getting in is a plus.
2 - Boston Tea Party Museum:
This place was pretty cheesy and actually a lot of fun. This is not a place where you just walk in and look around. It’s a full on interactive experience with actors throughout the entire ordeal that are “all in” when it comes to giving you some insight on how it was back in the day. Which is why it’s a little on the cheddar side, but if you can embrace the experience it’s really enjoyable. It was fun watching the kids, well Dax (Tanner is 13 so literally nothing is cool…) but Dax had a blast playing along and soaking it all in. They take you through a “town hall meeting”, give you a name, a role to play and then out to the ships to toss some tea bags into the ocean. Again, very interactive and a great way to cover a history lesson.
3 - Frog Pond Ice Skating:
Probably my favorite thing we did all together as a family. (The entire family was there, but just Dax, Riane and I skated. Tanner sat this one out and just watched because see above ie. “nothing is cool to a 13 year old”.) Regardless, the ice skating at the frog pond in the Boston commons was legit. It’s a little pricey for admission and then the skate rental, but was well worth it. We skated for about an hour and even though it was really cold outside, we had so much fun cruising around the rink with Dax holding hands and trying to teach both him and Riane how to ice skate. We went one evening and it was slam packed so we came back mid-week around 11am and there was a lot more space to skate which was helpful skating with a couple of learners. It definitely helped Dax not to be so intimidated by the mass amounts of people circling the ice rink like minnows in a bait bucket. I’m sure it would have been fun either time, but if you have little ones that are new to the ice with skates, then earlier in the day is much easier.
4 - Trolley Tour:
Riane and Pat (my father-in-law) were all over this mess. You can buy a bus pass that makes 20+ stops throughout the entire city, or at least the part of the city that most people want to see, and you can hop on and off all day. Buses run from 8-4 in a constant loop with a bus stopping at each every 15 minutes or so. We purchased a couple of days - (although I would suggest just doing 1 to get a overview of the city and then walk the rest of the time) - simply because we didn’t end up using it near as much as we thought we would. However; it is a great way to kick off your trip and get a big picture view of where you are and how you want to organize your daily activities.
5 - Boston Cream Pie:
You can’t go to Boston and not stop at the hotel that invented the Boston Cream pie. I’m embarrassed to say that I learned on this trip that the Boston Cream Pie originated in Boston (for an educated guy I find myself terribly uneducated far too often, but I’m really trying to catch up.) One of The Omni Parker Hotel’s many claims to fame is the origination of the beloved pie. This is a fun nostalgic stop that makes a great warm up, coffee and pie to share spot. I suggest sharing with each other: 1-3 people per pie. Although it’s a great experience, an entire pie for 1 is pretty rich, unless you just want to pound the thing all on your own - then go for it.
6 - Freedom Trail:
Boston is drenched with history. Walking along the paths that the American forefathers walked or rode in efforts to fight for what they believed to be their rights and ours to freedom is just a cool experience. It’s always more “real” when you actually see places, when you walk the same roads, smell some of the same smells, etc… - it brings a new appreciation for it all.
7 - Paul Revere’s House:
The fact that the thing is still there and has been maintained so well to give you a full picture of what it looked like to live in a home back then is incredible. The admission fee is not too bad and gives you a good hour or two of engaging with history. Everyone in our party really enjoyed the walk to the house as well as seeing it and then heading over to the north end restaurant row of Italian places (as mentioned in Part 1)… This is a great chance to hit one of the many excellent Italian food joints on the North End since you are are so close (like 2 blocks away).
8 - Fenway Park:
As I walked up the side tunnel just behind home plate and into the stands overlooking the field the feeling of history of where I was standing was incredible. I have loved baseball for as long as I can remember and being in a place where so much has happened was amazing. The Green Monster, the wooden stadium seats, looking out over where DeMaggio played…it’s almost like field of dreams “is this…heaven?". Yes, that’s taking it too far, but for any boy who loves baseball, that feeling crosses your mind. Do not go to Boston and not see Fenway.
9 - Get out and Explored the City:
The best thing we ever do regardless of where we are is to get out and explore new places. Whether we are on our way to do something we’ve planned in advance or we are just out wandering the city walking into random shops. We always try to immerse ourselves in the local culture. We love going new places not so that we can do the same things over and over again, but so we can find new things we love. (Don’t get me wrong, we love repeating things we love. We hit the same brunch spot every Sunday and we invest heavily into forming long term relationships with people by constantly showing up) - but we love seeing and finding new things for the first time. We want the best of both worlds and we fight pretty hard for that.
Again, what we enjoy most is experiencing new things together as a family. Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Aspen, L.A., Austin, etc… Wherever we are, we love getting as “local” as we can and seeing what it’s like to live in that city or town. The only problem is that it typically plants ideas or questions of “how could we move here for the summer or for a semester?” - but we always have such a fun time making lasting family memories, and that always excites us for the next trip.