169 Best Sights in Boston, Massachusetts

Next to the imposing church on the corner of Church Street and Mass Ave. lies the spooky-looking Colonial Old Burying Ground. Known as the most historic cemetery in Cambridge, it was established around 1635 and houses 17th- and 18th-century tombstones of ministers, Continental Congressmen, authors, early Harvard presidents, and Revolutionary War soldiers. The wooden Gothic Revival church, known locally as "First Parish," was built in 1833 by Isaiah Rogers and was given a face-lift in 2023. The congregation dates to two centuries earlier, and has been linked to Harvard since the founding of the college.

This historic district, which was designated by the City of Boston in 2009, features the city's largest, most cohesive grouping of late-19th- and early-20th-century industrial loft buildings. The Boston Wharf Company owned and developed the area from 1836 to 1882. Today, the small, walkable, revitalized area sits between the Fort Point Channel and the Seaport District and is home to working artist studios, bars and restaurants, and some small businesses.

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) is considered the nation's preeminent creator of parks. In 1883, while immersed in planning Boston's Emerald Necklace of parks, Olmsted set up his first permanent office at Fairsted, an 18-room farmhouse dating from 1810, to which he added another 18 rooms for his design offices. Plans and drawings on display include the U.S. Capitol grounds, Stanford University, and Mount Royal Park in Montréal. You can also tour the design rooms (some now in use as an archive library) where Olmsted and staff drew up their plans; highlights include a 1904 "electric blueprint machine," a kind of primitive photocopier.

The 1¾-acre site incorporates many trademark Olmstedian designs, including areas of meadow, wild garden, and woodland; Olmsted believed body and spirit could be healed through close association with nature. The site became part of the National Park Service in 1980; Olmsted's office played an influential role in the creation of this federal agency. Call ahead to inquire about house tour hours, which change with the seasons, though the grounds are open year-round.

More than a route of historic sites, the Freedom Trail is a 2½-mile walk into history, bringing to life the events that exploded on the world around the time of the American Revolution. It's 16 stops, which include the Massachusetts State House, Faneuil Hall, and Bunker Hill Monument (the trail's final stop), allow you to reach out and touch the very wellsprings of U.S. civilization—keep an eye on the sidewalk for the painted red-stripe or redbrick line that marks the trail. The Boston Visitor Information Center (technically the trail's first stop) has maps and a ton of information about the city and the trail.  For a detailed tour, check out the Freedom Trail Walking Tour in the Travel Smart chapter.

Through the foresight of an eccentric bon vivant, this house provides an authentic glimpse into daily life in Boston's Victorian era. One of the first Back Bay residences (1859), the Gibson House is relatively modest in comparison with some of the grand mansions built during the decades that followed; yet its furnishings, from its 1795 Willard clock to the raised and gilded wallpaper to the multipiece faux-bamboo bedroom set, seem sumptuous to modern eyes. Unlike other Back Bay houses, the Gibson family home has been preserved with all its Victorian fixtures and furniture intact. The house served as an interior for the 1984 Merchant Ivory film The Bostonians, as well as the 2019 movie Little Women.  The museum is only open to the public by hourly guided tours Thursday 3 pm to 5 pm, and Friday and Saturday 1 pm to 3 pm with suggested advance ticket purchase.

This is the North End's main thoroughfare, along with the smaller and narrower Salem Street. It was named for the ruling dynasty of 18th- and 19th-century England; the label was retained after the Revolution, despite a flurry of patriotic renaming (King Street became State Street, for example). Hanover's business center is thick with restaurants, pastry shops, and cafés, all celebrating the cuisine of the Old Country and most offering valet parking to combat the lack of parking. Hanover is one of Boston's oldest public roads, once the site of the residences of the Rev. Cotton Mather and the Colonial-era patriot Dr. Joseph Warren, as well as a small dry-goods store run by Eben D. Jordan—who went on to launch the now-defunct Jordan Marsh department stores.

Whimsical murals on cement barriers, colorful wooden chairs mounted on the outside wall of a commercial building, large-scale sculpture—together around 30 pieces generate an artistic ambience in the industrial setting of East Boston's working marina and shipyard. HarborArts curates a rotating collection of works by local and international artists across 14 acres, completely open to the public for perusal.

This green space is home to the first statue on city-owned property honoring a woman. The 10-foot bronze statue of Harriet Tubman is dedicated to the famous abolitionist, Underground Railroad conductor, nurse, spy, warrior, and crusader for women's rights. Although she never lived in Boston, Tubman had many links to the area through her abolitionist network.

Formerly known as the Semitic Museum, this Harvard institution is an almost unknown gem, serving as an exhibit space for Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and ancient Near East artifacts and as a center for archaeological exploration. The museum's extensive temporary collections rotate, while more permanent exhibits include life-size casts of famous Mesopotamian monuments, authentic mummy coffins, and tablets containing the earliest forms of writing. Free lectures are held on a rotating schedule (taking the summer season off), and the building also houses the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

The tree-studded, shady, and redbrick expanse of Harvard Yard—the very center of Harvard University—has weathered the footsteps of Harvard students for hundreds of years. In 1636 the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony voted funds to establish the colony's first college, and a year later chose Cambridge as the site. Named in 1639 for John Harvard, a young Charlestown clergyman who died in 1638 and left the college his entire library and half his estate, Harvard remained the only college in the New World until 1693, by which time it was firmly established as a respected center of learning. Local wags refer to Harvard as WGU—World's Greatest University—and it's certainly the oldest and most famous American university.

Although the college dates from the 17th century, the oldest buildings in Harvard Yard are from the 18th century (though you'll sometimes see archaeologists digging here for evidence of older structures). Together the buildings chronicle American architecture from the Colonial era to the present. Holden Chapel, completed in 1744, is a Georgian gem. The graceful University Hall was designed in 1815 by Charles Bulfinch. An 1884 statue of John Harvard by Daniel Chester French stands outside; ironically for a school with the motto of "Veritas" ("Truth"), the model for the statue was a member of the class of 1882 and not Harvard himself. Sever Hall, completed in 1880 and designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, represents the Romanesque revival that was followed by the neoclassical (note the pillared facade of Widener Library) and the neo-Georgian, represented by the sumptuous brick houses along the Charles River, many of which are now undergraduate residences. Memorial Church, a graceful steepled edifice of modified Colonial Revival design, was dedicated in 1932. Just north of the Yard is Memorial Hall, completed in 1878 as a memorial to Harvard men who died for the Union cause; it's High Victorian both inside and out. It also contains the 1,166-seat Sanders Theatre, which serves as the university's largest lecture hall, site of year-round concerts by students and professionals, and the venue for the festive Christmas Revels.

Many of Harvard's cultural and scholarly facilities are important sights in themselves, but most campus buildings, other than museums and concert halls, are off-limits to the general public.

The Harvard Information Center, in the Smith Campus Center, has a small exhibit space, distributes maps of the university area, and offers free student-led tours of Harvard Yard. The tour doesn't include visits to museums, and it doesn't take you into campus buildings, but it provides a fine orientation. The information center is open year-round. Students can usually be found standing around the Harvard Square T stop, hawking their guided tours led every half hour for $22. You can also download a mobile tour on your smartphone or purchase a self-guided tour map for $3.

Situated on the wonderfully scenic Charles River Esplanade, this acoustic and artful concert venue—100 feet wide and wood inlaid—annually hosts the Boston Pops' famous July 4 concert and dozens of other free, summer classical-orchestra performances, music festivals, film screenings, and other events. It's called a shell, well, because it looks like one.

Loud, self-promoting vendors pack this exuberant maze of a marketplace at Marshall and Blackstone streets on Friday and Saturday from dawn to dusk (most vendors are usually gone by 5 pm). As they have since 1820, pushcart vendors hawk fruits and vegetables for much cheaper than grocery stores against a backdrop of fish, meat, and cheese shops. The accumulation of debris left every evening has been celebrated in a whimsical 1976 public-arts project—Mags Harries's Asaroton, a Greek word meaning "unswept floors," a term used for Roman floor mosaics depicting banquet debris—consisting of bronze fruit peels and other detritus smashed into pavement. Another Harries piece, a bronze depiction of a gathering of stray gloves, tumbles down between the escalators in the Porter Square T station in Cambridge. At Creek Square, near the Haymarket, is the Boston Stone. Set into a brick wall, this was allegedly a marker used as milepost zero in measuring distances from Boston.

Brattle Street's seven houses known as "Tory Row" were once occupied by wealthy families linked by friendship, if not blood. Portions of this house may have been built as early as 1636. In 1737 it was purchased by John Vassall Sr.; four years later he sold it to his younger brother Henry and his wife Penelope. It was used as a hospital during the Revolution, and the traitor Dr. Benjamin Church was held here as a prisoner. The house was remodeled during the 19th century. It's now a private residence, but from the street you can view the Colonial home with its black-shuttered windows and multiple dormers.

The headquarters of the History Cambridge historical society, this Georgian mansion was built in 1685 and is one of the oldest houses in New England. It has been remodeled at least six times while still maintaining much of the original structure. The downstairs is elegantly, although sparsely, appointed with period books, portraits, and wallpaper. An upstairs bedroom has been furnished with period antiques, some belonging to the original residents. Check the website for special events including public art installations, and to see a virtual tour of the house.

This massive, multiuse complex injected some life into the West End when it opened a few years back. It's easy to reach from anywhere in the city since it's attached to North Station. With a hotel (citizenM), cinema (AMC Causeway 13), a concert space and nightclub, dozens of dining options, and the TD Garden sports arena, there is no shortage of things to do.

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston's seasonal outpost first opened in 2018 after renovations to a dilapidated former copper-pipe facility in East Boston's working shipyard and marina. Every summer, a single large-scale, immersive art installation makes the 15,000-square-foot space its own. A smaller gallery delves into the shipyard's history.

At the intersection of Cambridge and Hampshire streets, Inman Square has a great cluster of restaurants, cafés, bars, and shops. This place is just plain cool. Sadly, there's no T service to Inman, but you can get here from Harvard Square or Central Square on foot.

Part of Boston's Emerald Necklace, Jamaica Pond is a delightful way to escape from the city and enjoy nature. A 1.5-mile paved path running entirely around the large pond—which is actually a glacial kettle hole—is a big draw for walkers and joggers. The pond is stocked with trout and salmon each year and those with a permit can fish. From May to October, Courageous Sailing operates out of the Boat House and provides lessons and equipment for rowing and sailing, except when youth classes are in session; call ahead to confirm. One-hour kayak and paddleboard rentals are $20; rowboats are $35; and sailboats are $45.

This was the home of the 35th president from his birth on May 29, 1917, until 1921, when the family moved to nearby Naples and Abbottsford streets. Rose Kennedy provided the furnishings for the restored 2½-story, wood-frame structure. You can pick up a brochure for a walking tour of Kennedy's school, church, and neighborhood. To get here, take the MBTA Green Line to Coolidge Corner and walk north on Harvard Street four blocks. The house is open seasonally (usually beginning in June) and by appointment. Ongoing renovations mean parts of the home may be closed. Call in advance to confirm hours.

Believe it or not, the public is welcomed in for a visit to this architectural wonder and federal house of justice. Galleries across the courthouse feature rotating exhibitions on a variety of themes, from maritime history to the judicial system. Don't miss Ellsworth Kelly's permanent installation The Boston Panels in the courthouse's rotunda. It's not uncommon to see a tall ship or a charter vessel docked outside, in season. Book a free tour through the website.

Two blocks north of Fenway Park is Kenmore Square, where shops, restaurants, and the city's emblematic sign advertising Citgo gasoline can be found. The red, white, and blue neon sign from 1965 is so thoroughly identified with the area that historic preservationists fought, successfully, to save it. The old Kenmore Square punk clubs have given way to a block-long development of pricey stores and restaurants, as well as brick sidewalks, gaslight-style street lamps, and tree plantings. In the shadow of Fenway Park between Brookline and Ipswich is Lansdowne Street, a nightlife magnet for the trendy, who have their pick of dance clubs and pregame bars. The urban campus of Boston University begins farther west on Commonwealth Avenue, in blocks thick with dorms, shops, and restaurants.

Both somber and dramatic, King's Chapel looms large. In 1688, the first chapel on this site was erected as an Anglican place of worship, but that no longer stands. Today's interior remains essentially as it looked in 1754 and is a masterpiece of proportion; unfortunately, the building is not open to the public. Its acoustics make the use of a microphone unnecessary for Sunday sermons. Among other fun facts, the pulpit, built in 1717, is the oldest pulpit in continuous use on the same site in the United States, and a special pew to the right of the main entrance was once reserved for condemned prisoners about to be hanged on the Common. The chapel's bell is Paul Revere's largest and, in his own judgment, his sweetest sounding.  This is Freedom Trail stop 5.

Whether in rain or shine, legends linger in this oldest of the city's cemeteries, its first proper burying ground. A handy map of famous grave sites is posted a short walk down the left path. Notable people buried here include Elizabeth Pain, the model for the Hester Prynne character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter; William Dawes Jr., who rode out to warn of the British invasion with Paul Revere; and John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts. This is Freedom Trail stop 5.

Brookline's largest park was once the home of wealthy socialites Larz and Isabel Anderson, who left the estate to the town in 1951. It's now home to a large lawn at the top of the hill, playing fields, a pond, a seasonal outdoor ice rink, and the Larz Anderson Auto Museum. The top of the hill offers great views of Boston.

Look for the giant LEGO giraffe and you've found this recently redone mecca for building-block enthusiasts, where your kids can freestyle their own creations, build spaceships, launch their LEGO car off a ramp, or test their energy with the Hero Zone's climbing wall, action games, and laser maze. The Duplo Farm is perfect for tiny tots to spend some quiet discovery and building time. The 4D Cinema brings LEGO movies to life with additional wind, rain, and snow effects, while the indoor rides and Great LEGO Race virtual-reality experiences add in some interactive fun. Discover iconic Boston attractions and local buildings all made entirely out of LEGO bricks in the famous MINIWorld attraction that used more than 1.5 million.

Dedicated in 2002, the Zakim Bridge (as it's locally known) is the crown jewel of Boston's legendary Big Dig construction project. At 1,432 feet, it is one of the widest cable-stayed hybrid bridges ever built, and it is the first to use an asymmetrical design. Over the last 20 years, the Zakim has become an iconic part of Boston's skyline, especially at night when it is illuminated in different colors. The bridge's full name honors Leonard P. Zakim, a Boston area leader and civil rights activist, and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Long Wharf starts east of Atlantic Avenue, and it serves as the launching point for many of the city's water tours, sails, and whale-watch cruises. At its far end, it's also a departure point for Boston Duck Tours, Old Town Trolley, and CityView Trolley Tours. Halfway down the wharf, you can have dinner at Chart House seafood restaurant, but note that the historic building it houses was once John Hancock's counting house. The New England Aquarium sits next door, at Central Wharf.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet whose stirring tales of the village blacksmith, Evangeline, Hiawatha, and Paul Revere's midnight ride thrilled 19th-century America, once lived in this elegant Georgian mansion. One of several original Tory Row homes on Brattle Street, the house was built in 1759 by John Vassall Jr., and George Washington lived (and slept!) here during the Siege of Boston from July 1775 to April 1776. Longfellow first boarded here in 1837 and later received the house as a gift from his father-in-law on his marriage to Frances Appleton, who burned to death here in an accident in 1861. For 45 years Longfellow wrote his famous verses here and filled the house with the exuberant spirit of his literary circle, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Charles Sumner, an abolitionist senator. Longfellow died in 1882, but his presence in the house lives on—from the Longfellow family furniture to the wallpaper to the books on the shelves (many the poet's own).

The home, preserved and run by the National Park Service, hosts free guided tours Memorial Day through October. The formal garden is the perfect place to relax; the grounds are open year-round. Longfellow Park, across the street, is the place to stand to take photos of the house. The park was created to preserve the view immortalized in the poet's "To the River Charles." 

Charming, and tucked around the corner from historic Acorn Street, Louisburg Square (don't drop the "s") was an 1840s model for a town-house development that was never built on the Hill because of space restrictions. Today, its central grassy square, enclosed by a wrought-iron fence, belongs collectively to the owners of the homes encircling it. The houses have seen their share of famous tenants, including author and critic William Dean Howells at Nos. 4 and 16, and the Alcotts at No. 10 (Louisa May not only lived here, she died here). In 1852, singer Jenny Lind was married in the parlor of No. 20. Former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry and his wife own a home here.

A 35-foot golden and green statue of the Virgin Mary standing atop a globe dominates the Pope Paul VI Pilgrim Plaza that welcomes curious visitors and religious pilgrims to this Roman Catholic shrine. From its perch in Orient Heights, the shrine also boasts some pretty spectacular views of Logan Airport and the downtown skyline. Beneath the plaza, a sprawling sanctuary offers a quiet retreat, and some holy relics are on display. Masses are offered weekly in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.