I'm going to New York for a week in mid-April and have 1 free week afterwards, before heading home to London. What would be my best options? Boston? Montreal? Both?

I'm a 30 year old woman travelling solo and love food, eating out, museums, general sightseeing and people-watching. Thanks in advance!

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/plac...tion.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!).