Help please. Arriving in Boston on 2 September with a car. Doing this on a shoestring i.e. only require clean room for 1 or 2 nights, reasonable (or no) parking charges and easy access to public transport to check out Boston. Help/advice please!

Try Newbury Guest House on Newbury St. On my last stay they had free parking and you cannot beat the location.

Where are you driving in from (north, south, west?)

What does a "shoestring" mean to you? $80? $100? $200?

Driving from New York. Shoestring? As little as possible for a clean room - clean bed, clean shower - nothing else required!!!

There's a Y, I believe.

a "Y"??? Please explain. Is this a local expression? Am I missing the point - I'm not local!!!!

YMCA. It's an international organization.

http://www.ymcaboston.org/main/accommodations/

Probably no parking accommodations, though.

Thanks for the "Y" explanation. Maybe we need to go one step up from that. We're in our late 50's so maybe we have to take that into account!!!!!!!!!!

As you are driving to Boston, stop at some of the roadside stops and pick up the local hotel guide, it will list hotels, locations, phone numbers and even give you discounted rates, that's the good news.

The bad news is that is one of the busiest times in the Boston area, the colleges are back and the city is FULL of parents/students moving back into the city, so you may have problems finding a reasonable hotel rate.

Also you should probably check some of the travel websites and maybe make a reservation you can cancel if you find a better rate through the guide you are picking up on the way,,,,,,,,

Try www.hotels.com, www.travelocity,com www.hotwire.com and www.priceline.com.

If you are looking outside Boston, you might try some of the northern suburbs close to the T so you can park and take public transit in like Lynn, Saugus, Revere and East Boston all on the Blue Line. Or a bit out of your way, try Winthrop also on the Blue Line (Winthrop Arms Hotel).

The Blue Line ends in Revere; it doesn't go toLynn and Saugus, though the Commuter Rail might and buses certainly do. But paying for 2 round trips on the Commuter rail would cost as much as parking in the city.

You are going to need to try Priceline to get anything reasonable, and it won't be easy that weekend.

Try the Dedham Hilton (just off I 495), next door to a commuter rail station. You can leave your car there for free, and it is about 20 minutes into Back Bay station.

I don't know of any hotel in the city that charges less than $35 a night for parking.

The Park Plaza hotel (ex Statler for us senior citizens) is the biggest hotel in Boston and often has specials. It is about a block from the Motor Mart garage, which is not horribly expensive, and it is three long blocks from the Common garage if you just want to park and leave your car -- I think about $28 per night.

I should have added to my post that there are hotels in Lynn, Saugus and Revere and parking at the T stop in Revere so you can drive and park and take the T into the city.

If you check the Winthrop Arms, which is quite a nice hotel, and there are 2 others in town but can't remember the names, Google, Winthrop Ma hotels and it should give you the names. From Winthrop you can drive to the Orient Heights station and park there, and again take the T into the city.

You can also look into hotels in Newton (off Masspike). A few of them are very close to the commuter rail station to get into the city.

MBTA.com is website to check for public transit options into Boston - you can enter point to point addresses and get routing - worth it, since 10 miles can take an hour on public transit in Boston.

Important considerations if price of hotel causes you to stay outside of Boston proper.

First "hotel shuttles" are notoriously unreliable. While they may work fine to MBTA station at 9 AM, what about after you return at 9 PM or on a weekend. All sorts of stories about "Joey didn't show up today" so shuttle is not running.

Second, subway stations fill very early with commuters on weekdays. They are less busy in summer, but you are talking about the day after Labor Day when everyone goes back to work. By early, in many locations that means by 7:30 AM.

MBTA commuter rail trains run frequently during commuter hours and for many lines only every few hours outside of these times. The entire MBTA system shuts down between midnight and 1 AM.

Everyone wants accomodations that are clean, close, convenient at low cost. You have to give on something - usually convenience versus cost. There are really no no-frills budget accomodations in Boston proper that I know of. Add to that that this is still student drop-off at college time.

I would try VRBO. There are some studio and 1 bedroom apartments listed that may rent for a very short term, especially if they have a vacancy between two longer term rentals. They may have parking available as well.

Thanks to all for your suggestions. Tripadvisor had some very good reports on Newbury Guest House so I've made a reservation with them.

You won't be sorry.