Hello,

We will be visiting Boston at the end of AUgust for two days (Friday, Saturday and leave Sunday morning). I'll have a rental car....

We have never been to Boston so will be doing the Freedom Trail, etc. Is there a hotel centrally located for these stops? Should I lose the car? I won't save any money off the rental (but would have to pay for parking). SOmething in the $200+/- range would be great.....Thanks!

You don't need a car...

I live near Boston so we don't stay in the city often but have stayed for special occasions. The Marriot Longwharf was nice (but closer to $300 a night).

We have had great luck with Priceline - just select 4 or 5 star and you should be fine. You can easily take the T (metro) anyplace.

Ditch the car. With only 2 days you'll get to everything you need to with the T. We just came back from Boston and stayed at the Cambridge Marriot right across the river in Cambridge next to the MIT campus. It's not downtown, but it's right on top of the Kendall Sq T stop, and two T stops from downtown or from Harvard Sq. Plus, it's about half the cost of a downtown hotel.

Book your hotel soon since this is the weekend when everyone begins to bring their kids to college and reservations can be a problem.

We live an hour north of Boston and we like to spend weekends in town. So we've stayed at many of the major hotels usually whereever we can get the best rate. As a rule we prefer the Back Bay/Copley area - closer to restaurants and shopping and Fenway. We have stayed at the following:

Sheraton Prudential - got a great rate on Hotwire, room needed updating but location and common areas were very nice.

Westin Copley - excellent location, common areas and room. Probably my favorite overall.

Hilton Back Bay - closer to Fenway, but further from Freedom Trail. Lovely rooms, blah common areas.

Lenox - lovely old hotel, recently renovated, very old school New England in terms of decor. Least favorite but only because of personal taste - nothing wrong with hotel.

Colonade - modern decor, terrific restaurant (Brasserie Jo), rooftop pool, location is a tad out of the way as it is on Huntington not Boylston but a very nice hotel.

Hyatt Financial - definitely the least favorite - in theater district on edge of Financial district - rooms were okay, thin walls.

Marriott Long Wharf - nice location on water, rooms were okay.

Intercontinental - location is not great but not bad. Convenient to few tourist stuff but close to South Station and the Red Line. Short walk to busier parts of the waterfront. Beautiful rooms and common areas- the prettiest of the bunch.

Parking runs around $30-40 per night for each of these hotels. Ditch the car if possible or park it in the Common garage and leave it there.