1 week free after New York - where could I go?

Philadelphia or Boston

It could still be FREEZING/WINDY in Boston in mid-April, however.

One of my favourite places in the entire world is the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Back Bay. You will never see anything like it in your life.

Fat Lady

Boston weather will be about the same as New York's, especially considering that the visit will be a week later.

One consideration is that the weekend of April 18-20 is a major even in Boston, the Marathon on Monday, and it will be crowded and even more expensive than usual if you can even GET a hotel room then. The week of April 20-24 is spring vacation week for most public-school kids in the Boston area.

Boston - but beware that April 20 is Patriots Day/Boston marathon, so if that's the time your free week is, your chance of finding any affordable hotels in Boston is close to zero.

You can stay for a couple of days somewhere in Rhode Island, or coastal Maine during the April 20 long weekend, then head into Boston afterwards.

If your week is after April 20, you can just stay in Boston for the entire week and perhaps do a couple of day trips from Boston.

I don't know your budget, but there are lots of excellent free musuems in Washington, D.C. (see www.si.edu and www.nga.gov) You can travel here by plane, train or bus from NYC. Bus is the cheapest way to travel and two fairly new bus lines are getting good reviews here: Megabus and Bolt Bus. The weather should be warmer than Boston's or Montreal's and you can sit outside on the Mall and people-watch to your heart's content.

Thanks everyone, really informative. The week will likely be 23-30 April. yk, what day trips do you suggest from Boston?

Assuming you don't want to rent a car, day trips from Boston options:

Salem/Gloucester/Rockport (north)
Concord/Lexington (west)
Quincy/JKF Museum (south)

I'd take the train to Philadelphia and spend 2 days there and then continue on the Washington DC.

I agree with mclaurie. DC will be warmer than points north and there is so much to see and do. Museums, galleries and the like. I so recommend the Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle. The monuments are awe inspiring. My favorite place to stay in DC is Dupont at the Circle. Check out the tripperbus.com for travel between NYC and DC. Or..be extravagant and take the train.


I intially thought Montreal because I love it so but it will still be cold.

JFK Library is not a day trip from Boston; it IS Boston. Just hop on the Red Line to the JFK/UMass stop. If you happen to like Victorian houses, take a walk through Dorchester from either the Shawmut or Ashmont T stops. Some of the most beautiful houses you'll ever see, blocks of them in Ashmont Hill and Melville Park. Just be sure you know where you are going so you don't end up somewhere too sketchy.

The weather seems to be warming up quite nicely this year, so it should be very nice by late April. Quincy is a bit further out, but still can be reached on the Braintree branch of the Red Line. The main attraction there being John Adams' home, etc.

You can even reach Concord, but on the Commuter Rail, for a nice day trip. It's a great town with so much to see. The Concord Museum, Orchard House (Louisa May Alcott's home), Thoreau's home, the Old North Bridge and the Old Manse. If you are a good walker, you can do most of it from the train stop...get off in Concord, not West Concord.

When I suggested Quincy/JFK Museum, what I had in mind was to combine the Adams National Historic Park in Quincy + JFK Museum, since both are south of the city along the Red Line of the T.

The Adams site itself takes 2 hours to visit, so one can easily spend the entire morning at the Adams site plus a visit to the United First Parish Church next door.

Have lunch, and then head to JFK/UMASS for the JFK Museum. After a couple of hours at the museum, one can then take a walk along Harbor Walk if the weather is nice.

I'm pretty sure this can easily take up an entire day.

http://www.nps.gov/adam/
http://www.bostonharborwalk.com/placestogo/location.php?nid=2

I really like the idea of half the time in Philadelphia and half in Washington D.C. If you decide to do that, let us know, so we can make suggestions re: museums, food, etc.!

go laura, would love to hear what your museum and food suggestions would be in Washington.

PamSF, that tripperbus only goes to Arlington or Bethesda. What about http://www.dc2ny.com/ ?

There is a snow storm barreling down on Michigan right now. April can be a bad time in the Northeast.

Why don't you head to the airport and catch a flight somewhere south and warm? I would bet there are a lot of cheap flights to Miami or Ft. Myers, Florida. With a week available, it wouldn't be too hard of a trip. A flight to Florida would only be a couple of hours.

Agreed that the mansions on Melville Avenue in Dorchester are nice to see, but would strongly caution against straying off that street and Dorchester Avenue even in the daytime, as these streets are surrounded by an extremely sketchy area that can turn scary bad within a block or two in any direction. If you really want to see these houses, would suggest going to the Fields Corner Red Line stop, walking down Dorchester Avenue, and turning right onto Melville Avenue (would not recommend going beyond the intersection of Melville and Washington to the west or turning down Washington Street in either direction). Would recommending avoiding the whole area in the evening or at night.

If I were an out-of-town sightseer, I would put these houses and Dorchester in general low on my priority list. A walk down Brattle Street in Cambridge will yield an excellent clutch of historic homes to see (including the Longfellow House and Hooper/Lee/Nichols House, both of which can be seen via tour) in a far safer area.

I wouldn't dream of sending a tourist to the Fields Corner/Melville Park area.

"There is a snow storm barreling down on Michigan right now. April can be a bad time in the Northeast."

But Michigan isn't in the Northeast. This week's forecast for Boston calls for temps in the 50's.

if you go to Washington I heartly second the b&b Dupont at the Circle It's one of the nicest places I have stayed and a wonderful location. The price is reasonable for that area

sorry about the tripper bus misinformation. We are headed to DC to visit relatives in October. They sent us the tripper bus info. Whatever bus mclaurie recommends would be the right one I Imagine.

And..the Dupont Circle drop off is just around the corner from Dupont on the Circle.

For economical but safe transport between NYC and either DC or Boston, use the clean modern, full-service bus lines that have sprung up to compete with the Chinatown buses, including Megabus and Bolt Bus (which I'm on RIGHT NOW!).

Anon - please let me know what you think of the BoltBus!

Anonymous, I agree, and thanks for the correction -- I wouldn't ordinarily consider sending a tourist anywhere near Dorchester either, unless one considers the JFK Library to be here.

My concern, perhaps misguided, was to think of the safest way a tourist might consider seeing the Melville Park houses suggested by AndreaNewEngland. They're actually nice old Victorian houses, but that stretch of Melville Avenue is essentially an island surrounded by a whole lot of bad neighborhood. In retrospect, I probably should have just given a roundly ringing "no" to the idea altogether -- it's not really worth the effort to get there, and one can see houses as nice or nicer in lots better areas.

Let me also say that I don't at all endorse AndreaNewEngland's idea of "tak[ing] a walk through Dorchester from either the Shawmut or Ashmont T stops." No way I'd wander Ashmont Hill at all, and AndreaNewEngland's notion that one needs to "just be sure you know where you are going so you don't end up somewhere too sketchy" is putting it very, very kindly indeed. Tourists don't usually have this kind of knowledge anyway, and I'm not certain you'd stay safe even if you did.

I'm a new fan of Brattle Street (aka Tory Row) in Cambridge. I know nothing about American literature, and even I LOVED the tour of Longfellow House and a stroll in that neighborhood. So much history to tell...

Thanks everyone, even more great ideas. The only thing is I don't want to hop on a plane, few hours on train/bus (or overnight) from New York is what I'm after. I fly out of Newark in the evening so will need to get back there as well.

go_laura, I'd love to hear your tips for Philadelphia and DC.

jk, very good point about Quincy/JFK as a "day trip." I didn't mean to disagree with that.

I don't at all recommend tourists coming to Dorchester, except as I said if they have a particular interest in Victorian houses. There are people who travel to see architecture. I have a guest right now who is at the JFK Library, but I was surprised that his interest in it was basically to see an I.M.Pei building.

However, let's not overstate the "danger" of Dorchester. I did warn to get advice about what streets not to cross. Dorchester Ave. is totally safe. Fields Corner is NOT Melville Park, that's a good example of a few blocks making a big difference. You would not take the T to Fields Corner at all, Shawmut is the stop for Melville Park. And anyone who thinks Ashmont Hill could be dangerous in any way just doesn't know. But no need for the locals to get into a pissing contest over this. I actually agree with the poster who says you can some fabulous houses in Cambridge, which can be a nice walk too.

AndreaNewEngland--

I've walked in this area before, and I'm just not in agreement with some specifics you've stated re Dorchester.

The Fields Corner Red Line stop is right on Dorchester Ave., and I've never felt unsafe there, though I wouldn't venture off Dot Ave. here. The Shawmut Red Line stop is indeed closer to Melville Park, but I did not feel at all safe there even in the daytime -- as I said above, Melville Park itself is OK but the surrounding parallel streets are in my experience not. Nor did I feel safe when I tried walking the Ashmont Hill area -- I left after a brief venture into the area.

I prefer being safer than sorrier in my wanderings, and I'm guessing tourists prefer that as well. Dorchester is in my opinion and in my experience too dicey to take the chance for those unfamiliar with the area, except maybe for the Savin Hill area east of the Expressway, parts of Dot Ave., and the Melville Park strip. And even then, only in the daytime.

Disagree with me if you must.