Kid friendly recommendations for Boston trip?

Hi

We're visiting Boston next week and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for fun places to take the kids. Any drop in music/art classes or a story time perhaps? A great playground? My husband will be at a conference during the day so I'll be touring around alone with my 3 year olds.

Also, what are your fave kid friendly restaurants downtown???

Thanks in advance!!!

 

The Boston aquarium is fantastic for little kids and worth the trip from anywhere in the metro area. Where exactly will you be staying? There are great parks scattered all over the city, but I'd hate to recommend something by Copley if you're staying in Cambridge, etc, etc, etc. If you're downtown, check out the swan boats and frog pond at the Boston Commons and the Boston Public Gardens (across the street).

 

I ditto going to the Boston Common and make sure you take them on a Swan Boat ride. Super cheap and fun!

Definitely go to the Children's Museum. You could definitely spend a day there and 3 is such a great age to visit!!

Head on over to Quincy Market. There's tons of shopping to do (if they would allow you :lol: ) but also the biggest food court around. You can literally get anything you could possibly want to eat there.

Right off Quincy Market are usually horsedrawn carriages. When my friend and I went, the kids were free so it was worth it!

Cross the street from Quincy Market, walking toward the water, and I believe the merry-go-round is up. They were just putting it together when we were there a month ago, so I would imagine it's running now. If you keep walking past that, still toward the water, there is the Christopher Columbus park. Not a playground by any means but lots of area to run around and you can walk right down to the harbor from there.

 

Our first "real" vacation was to Boston when my girls were 3.5.

The playground on Boston Common is great and easily accessible from the T. There's also a small carousel not too far from there (across the park).

They loved sitting on the duck statues in the Public Garden (even though they hadn't really read "Make Way for Ducklings" yet) and riding on the swan boats.

The Aquarium was actually not a huge hit for us. One of my girls (I forget which one) liked it OK, but the other found the environment very overwhelming -- it's a semi-dark, cavernous, echoing space. It depends on the kid, but maybe try the aquarium at your local zoo first, because the Boston Aquarium is an expensive mistake to make.

We were staying with a friend in Cambridge and my kids also enjoyed running around the paths in the garden at the Longfellow House on Brattle St. (It isn't at all obvious that it's open to the public, but it is.)

The Children's Museum was worth a visit, but they didn't seem to enjoy it as much as the Denver one. Maybe it depends on how many times you've been to things like that before.

They loved just riding on the T, especially the part from Cambridge to Boston where it comes out of the tunnel and goes over a bridge.

Definitely schedule plenty of downtime. We did an outing every day, but also spent a lot of time just hanging out at my friend's house or walking with the stroller (partly so the kids would fall asleep and get at least some kind of a nap!).

I think we only went to one restaurant -- some place in Chinatown. I felt like we stuck out like a sore thumb on a weekday (not for being Caucasian, but for not being businesspeople), and the kids wouldn't eat anything, but they had lots of fun trying to pick up rice with chopsticks.