222 Best Sights in Massachusetts, USA

This 80,000-square-foot facility—named for Canadian phys-ed instructor Dr. James Naismith, who invented the game of basketball in 1891 during his five years at Springfield's YMCA Training Center—showcases plenty of jerseys, memorabilia, and video highlights. High-profile players such as Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the NBA and Nancy Lieberman of the WNBA are among the nearly 300 enshrinees, but the hall celebrates the accomplishments of players, coaches, and others at all levels of the sport. In addition to displays chronicling basketball history, the hall has a soaring domed arena where you can practice jumpers, walls of inspirational quotes you can view, dozens of interactive exhibits, and video footage and interviews with former players. The hall is easy to find: look for the 15-story spire with an illuminated basketball on top.

This association maintains an assortment of venerable properties in town. A $23 pass gets you into all of the association's sites, including the glorious Whaling Museum and Hadwen House: historic properties including the Oldest House, Old Mill, Old Gaol, Greater Light are free for all visitors. Reserve in advance for two very popular walking tours, which depart daily late May–early September: a 60-minute Historic Downtown tour and a Historic Homes & Architecture tour. Both cost $20.

The Berkshire cottage of Joseph Choate (1832–1917), an influential New York City lawyer and the ambassador to Great Britain during President William McKinley's administration, provides a glimpse into the Gilded Age lifestyle. The 44-room gabled mansion, designed by Stanford White and completed in 1887, sits atop Prospect Hill. Its many original furnishings and artworks span three centuries; the collection of Chinese porcelain is particularly noteworthy. The meticulously kept 8 acres of formal gardens, a three-decade project of Choate's daughter, Mabel, and landscape designer Fletcher Steele, alone make this site worth a visit. Creative use of the property now includes a Winter Lights display, with over 200,000 twinkling LED lights; a Halloween-inspired pumpkin trail and haunted house; live music nights with picnics; and a springtime Daffodil Festival.

Adjacent to Coast Guard Beach, this sandy beach is backed by tall dunes, frilly grasses, and heathland. The trail to the Three Sisters lighthouses takes you through a pitch-pine forest. Parking here is extremely limited and fills up quickly in summer; plan to arrive early or you may have to go elsewhere. Amenities: lifeguards; parking (fee); showers; toilets. Best for: sunrise; surfing; swimming; walking.

As interesting and exciting as it is educational, this aquarium is a must for those who are curious about what lives in and around the sea. The building's glass-and-steel exterior is constructed to mimic fish scales, and seals bark and swim in the outdoor tank. Inside the main facility, more than 30,000 animals of 800 different species frolic in simulated habitats.

In the semi-enclosed outdoor space of the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center, visitors can enjoy the antics of northern fur seals and sea lions while gazing out at Boston Harbor.

The real showstopper, though, is the four-story, 200,000-gallon ocean-reef tank. Ramps winding around the tank lead to the top level and allow you to view the inhabitants from many vantage points. Up top, the Yawkey Coral Reef Center features a seven-tank exhibit gallery that gives a close-up look at animals that might not be easily seen on the reef. Don't miss the five-times-a-day feedings; each lasts nearly an hour and takes divers 24 feet into the tank.

Get up close to a variety of species of sharks and rays at the Trust Family Foundation Shark and Ray Touch Tank, the largest of its kind on the East Coast.

Add on to the day at the aquarium's IMAX theater, which takes you on virtual journeys from the bottom of the sea to the depths of outer space in 3-D films.  Planning to see an IMAX film or go whale-watching in addition to visiting the New England Aquarium? Ask about combo tickets to save some money.

At one end of the Paul Revere Mall is a church famous not only for being the oldest standing church building in Boston (built in 1723) but also for housing the two lanterns that glimmered from its steeple on the night of April 18, 1775. This is Christ (or Old North) Church, where Paul Revere and the young sexton Robert Newman managed that night to signal the departure by water of the British regulars to Lexington and Concord. Newman, carrying the lanterns, ascended the steeple, while Revere began his clandestine trip by boat across the Charles.

Although William Price designed the structure after studying Christopher Wren's London churches, Old North—which still has an active Episcopal congregation (including descendants of the Reveres)—is an impressive building in its own right. Inside, note the gallery and the graceful arrangement of pews; the bust of George Washington, pronounced by the Marquis de Lafayette to be the truest likeness of the general he ever saw; the brass chandeliers, made in Amsterdam in 1700 and installed here in 1724; and the clock, the oldest still running in an American public building. Try to visit when changes are rung on the bells, after the 11 am Sunday service; they bear the inscription, "We are the first ring of bells cast for the British Empire in North America." The steeple itself is not the original—the tower was destroyed in a hurricane in 1804 and was replaced in 1954. On the Sunday closest to April 18, descendants of the patriots reenact the raising of the lanterns in the church belfry during a special ticketed evening service, which also includes readings of Longfellow’s renowned poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” and Revere’s first-person account of that fateful night. Visitors are welcome to drop in for a self-guided tour or a 15-minute guided crypt tour.

Behind Old North is the Washington Memorial Garden, where volunteers cultivate a plot devoted to plants and flowers favored in the 18th century.  This is Freedom Trail stop 13.

This is the second-oldest church building in Boston, and were it not for Longfellow's celebration of Old North in "Paul Revere's Ride," it might well be the most famous. Some of the fiercest of the town meetings that led to the Revolution were held here, culminating in the gathering of December 16, 1773, which was called by Samuel Adams to confront the crisis of three ships, laden with dutiable tea, anchored at Griffin's Wharf. The activists wanted the tea returned to England, but the governor would not permit it—and the rest is history. The Voices of Protest exhibit celebrates Old South as a forum for free speech from Revolutionary days to the present.

This Colonial-era landmark has one of the most recognizable facades in Boston, with its gable adorned by a brightly gilded lion and silver unicorn, symbols of British imperial power. This was the seat of the Colonial government from 1713 until the Revolution, and after the evacuation of the British from Boston in 1776 it served the independent Commonwealth until its replacement on Beacon Hill was completed in 1798. The Declaration of Independence was first read in public in Boston from its balcony. John Hancock was inaugurated here as the first governor under the new state constitution. Today, it's an interactive museum with exhibits, artifacts, and 18th-century artwork, and tells the stories of Revolutionary Bostonians through costumed guides. This is Freedom Trail stop 9.

Salem's world-class museum celebrates superlative works from around the globe and across time, including American art and architecture, Asian export art, photography, and maritime art and history, as well as Native American, Oceanic, and African art. With a collection of 1.8 million works, housed in a contemplative blend of modern design, PEM represents a diverse range of styles; exhibits include pieces ranging from American decorative and seamen's art to an interactive Art & Nature Center and photography. While there, be sure to tour the Yin Yu Tang house. This fabulous 200-year-old house dates to the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) of China. The museum brought it over from China in sections and reassembled it here.

Against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean, and 3 miles south of downtown Plymouth, this living museum shares the rich, interwoven story of the Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag homeland through engaging daily programs and special events. A 1620s Pilgrim village has been carefully re-created, from the thatch roofs, cramped quarters, and open fireplaces to the long-horned livestock. Throw away your preconception of white collars and funny hats; through ongoing research, the Plimoth staff has developed a portrait of the Pilgrims that's more complex than the dour folk in school textbooks. Listen to the accents of the "residents," who never break out of character. Feel free to engage them in conversation about their life. Don't worry, 21st-century museum educators are on hand to help answer any questions you have as well. On the Wampanoag homesite, meet native people speaking from a modern perspective on the traditions, lifeways, and culture of Eastern Woodlands Indigenous people. Note that there's not a lot of shade here in summer.

Part of the Cape Cod National Seashore, the Province Lands stretch from High Head in Truro to the tip of Provincetown and are scattered with ponds, cranberry bogs, and scrub. More than 7 miles of bike and walking trails lace through forests of stunted pines, beech, and oak and across desertlike expanses of rolling dunes. At the visitor center you'll find short films on local geology and exhibits on the life of the dunes and the shore. You can also pick up information on guided walks, birding trips, lectures, and other programs, as well as on the Province Lands' pristine beaches, Race Point and Herring Cove, and walking, biking, and horse trails. Don't miss the awe-inspiring panoramic view of the dunes and the surrounding ocean from the observation deck. This terrain provides optimal conditions for the deer tick, which can cause Lyme disease, so use extra caution.

Founded in 1914 to collect and exhibit the works of artists with Provincetown connections, this facility has a 1,650-piece permanent collection, displayed in changing exhibitions that mix up-and-comers with established 20th-century figures like Milton Avery, Philip Evergood, William Gropper, Charles Hawthorne, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Man Ray, John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol, and Agnes Weinrich. A stunning contemporary wing has greatly expanded the exhibit space. The museum store carries books of local interest, including works by or about area artists and authors, as well as posters, crafts, cards, and gift items. Art classes (single day and longer) offer the opportunity to study under such talents as Hilda Neily, Selina Trieff, and Doug Ritter.

Quincy Market, also known as Faneuil Hall Marketplace, is not everyone's cup of tea; some people prefer grit to polish, and disdain the shiny cafés and boutiques. But there's no denying that this pioneer effort at urban recycling set the tone for many similar projects throughout the country, and that it has brought tremendous vitality to a once-tired corner of Boston. Quincy Market attracts huge crowds of tourists and locals throughout the year. In the early ’70s, demolition was a distinct possibility for the decrepit buildings. Fortunately, with the participation of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, architect Benjamin Thompson planned a renovation of Quincy Market, and the Rouse Corporation of Baltimore undertook its restoration, which was completed in 1976. Try to look beyond the shop windows to the grand design of the market buildings themselves; they represent a vision of the market as urban centerpiece, an idea whose time has certainly come again.

The market consists of three block-long annexes: Quincy Market, North Market, and South Market, each 535 feet long and across a plaza from Faneuil Hall. The structures were designed in 1826 by Alexander Parris as part of a public-works project instituted by Boston's second mayor, Josiah Quincy, to alleviate the cramped conditions of Faneuil Hall and clean up the refuse that collected in Town Dock, the pond behind it. The central structure, made of granite, with a Doric colonnade at either end and topped by a classical dome and rotunda, has kept its traditional market-stall layout, but the stalls now purvey international and specialty foods: sushi, frozen yogurt, bagels, calzones, sausage-on-a-stick, Chinese noodles, barbecue, and baklava, plus all the boutique chocolate-chip cookies your heart desires.

In between Quincy Market and South Market colonnades, be sure to stop and take a seat next to the sculpture of legendary Boston Celtics coach, Red Auerbach, smoking one of his famous stogies.

Along the arcades on either side of the Central Market are vendors selling sweatshirts, photographs of Boston, and arts and crafts—some schlocky, some not—alongside a couple of patioed bars and restaurants, including the new Sam Adams Brewery (perfectly poised within sight of his famous statue). The North and South markets house a mixture of chain stores and specialty boutiques.

Faneuil Hall provides a splash of color; during the winter holidays, trees along the cobblestone walks are strung with thousands of sparkling lights and the interior Quincy Market rotunda is home to a 20-foot Christmas tree. In summer up to 50,000 people a day descend on the market; the outdoor cafés are an excellent spot to watch the hordes if you can find a seat. Year-round the pedestrian walkways draw street performers, and rings of strollers form around magicians and musicians.

In an unassuming former bank lies a large multifloor gallery filled with the works of many artists, but the collection's crown jewel is the room filled with the work from dozens of children's book illustrators. Originals by everyone from Maurice Sendak to Mo Willems are featured, as well as a Dr. Seuss area that includes a few sculptures along with his illustrations.

Race Point Beach, one of the Cape Cod National Seashore beaches in Provincetown, has a wide swath of sand stretching far off into the distance around the point and Coast Guard station. Because of its position facing north, the beach gets sun all day long. Keep an eye out for whales offshore; it's also a popular fishing spot.

Daily parking is $25; the annual seashore pass grants access to all six national park beaches is $60.

lifeguards; parking (fee); showers; toilets.

sunrise; sunset; surfing; swimming; walking.

Jim Schantz's gallery is small and tucked behind a bank, but it displays some of the finest glasswork in the world. With items from nearly five dozen contemporary artists—including Dale Chihuly and Lino Tagliapietra—the museum-quality collection is truly stunning. Call ahead because hours are limited during the winter.

Surfside Beach, accessible via the Surfside Bike Path (3 miles) or by shuttle bus, is the island's most popular surf beach. This wide strand of sand comes fully equipped with conveniences. It draws teens and young adults as well as families and is great for kite flying and, after 5 pm, surf casting. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards; parking (fee); showers; toilets. Best for: surfing; swimming; walking.

This 1902 mansion with myriad classical influences was the summer home of novelist Edith Wharton. The 42-room house and 3 acres of formal gardens were designed by Wharton, who is considered by many to have set the standard for 20th-century interior decoration. In designing the Mount, she followed the principles set forth in her book The Decoration of Houses (1897), creating a calm and well-ordered home. To date, nearly $15 million has been spent on an ongoing restoration project. Summer is a fine time to enjoy the informal café and occasional free concerts on the terrace. Guided tours take place during regular hours, the private "ghost tour" after hours, and noteworthy authors make regular visits to discuss their latest books.

Owned and operated by the Roberts family, this vineyard has greatly stepped up production, and has begun experimenting with some new varieties. The vineyard makes several notable blends, both red and white. It also makes a red table wine that's flavored with cranberries and known for its unusual bottle, shaped like a lighthouse. There is also an aged rum, whiskey, and gin distillery on the property, South Hollow Spirits, which produces organic spirits; tours and tastings available. There are many excellent wine and food events scheduled throughout the summer. It's a great place to picnic, and there's a resident food truck on-site.

Affectionately known as "Old Ironsides," the USS Constitution rides proudly at anchor in her berth at the Charlestown Navy Yard. The oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. fleet is a battlewagon of the old school, of the days of "wooden ships and iron men"—when she and her crew of 200 succeeded at the perilous task of asserting the sovereignty of an improbable new nation. Every July 4, she's towed out for a celebratory turnabout in Boston Harbor, where her keel was laid in 1797.

The venerable craft has narrowly escaped the scrap heap several times in her long history. She was launched on October 21, 1797, as part of the nation's fledgling navy. Her hull was made of live oak, the toughest wood grown in North America; her bottom was sheathed in copper, provided by Paul Revere at a nominal cost. Her principal service was during Thomas Jefferson's campaign against the Barbary pirates, off the coast of North Africa, and in the War of 1812. In 42 engagements her record was 42–0.

The nickname "Old Ironsides" was acquired during the War of 1812, when shots from the British warship Guerrière appeared to bounce off her hull. Talk of scrapping the ship began as early as 1830, but she was saved by a public campaign sparked by Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem "Old Ironsides." She underwent a major restoration in the early 1990s. Today she continues, the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world, to be a part of the U.S. Navy. In 2015, she was dry docked for a 26-month restoration that included replacement of select hull planks, the 1995 copper sheathing, and deck beams, returning to the water in 2017.

The navy personnel who look after the Constitution maintain a 24-hour watch. Instead of taking the T, you can get closer to the ship by taking MBTA Bus 93 to Chelsea Street from Haymarket. Or you can take the Boston Harbor Cruise water shuttle from Long Wharf to Pier 4. This is Freedom Trail stop 15.

With nearly 2,000 artifacts and more than 10,000 archival records pertaining to the USS Constitution on display, exhibits spark excitement about maritime culture and naval service. All ages enjoy “All Hands on Deck: A Sailor’s Life in 1812,” complete with opportunities to scrub decks, scramble aloft to furl a sail, eat a meal of salted meat and ship’s biscuit, and crawl into a hammock. History buffs get a stem-to-stern look at the ship's history, from its creation to battles.

For lovers of Early American literature, a trip to Concord isn't complete without a pilgrimage to Henry David Thoreau's most famous residence. Here, in 1845, at age 28, Thoreau moved into a one-room cabin—built for $28.12—on the shore of this 100-foot-deep kettle hole formed by the retreat of an ancient glacier. Living alone for the next two years, Thoreau discovered the benefits of solitude and the beauties of nature. Walden, published in 1854, is a mixture of philosophy, nature writing, and proto-ecology.

The site of the original house is staked out in stone. A full-size, authentically furnished replica of the cabin stands about a half mile from the original site, near the Walden Pond State Reservation parking lot. During the summer, don't be shocked if you aren't allowed entrance: Walden Pond has a visitor capacity. Get there early or visit later in the day for the best chance of getting in.

With exhibits that include a fully rigged whaleboat and a skeleton of a 46-foot sperm whale, this must-see museum—a complex that includes a restored 1846 spermaceti candle factory—offers a crash course in the island's colorful history. Items on display include harpoons and other whale-hunting implements; portraits of whaling captains and their wives (a few of whom went whaling as well); the South Seas curiosities they brought home; a large collection of sailors' crafts; a full-size tryworks once used to process whale oil; and the original 16-foot-high 1850 lens from Sankaty Head Lighthouse. The museum also offers a rotating gallery with a new exhibit each season, a fine art gallery, and a world-class scrimshaw collection. The Children's Discovery Room provides interactive-learning opportunities. Be sure to climb—or take the elevator—up to the observation deck for a view of the harbor.

The collection at this fine museum spans a range of eras and cultures, with American and 20th-century art as two major focuses. The original octagonal structure facing Main Street was built as a library in 1846, and the painted wall above the stairs is by Sol LeWitt—actually the third mural to occupy the wall. Special events take place on the outdoor patio on Thursday night in summer. Get an inside look at Williams students' experience with Object Lab, a hybrid gallery-classroom curated by faculty to coincide with students' studies.

With white sand and dunes, Wingaersheek Beach is a well-protected cove with both a beach side and a boat side. The white Annisquam lighthouse is in the bay. The beach is known for its miles of white sand and calm waters. Make a required parking reservation online after Memorial Day through summer. The parking lot is accessible and beach wheelchairs are available on request. Amenities: food and drink; parking (fee); toilets. Best for: swimming; walking.

This impressive facility displays numerous large tanks and many more smaller ones filled with regional fish and shellfish. Rooms are small, but they are crammed with stuff to see. Magnifying glasses and a dissecting scope help you examine marine life. Several hands-on pools hold banded lobsters, crabs, snails, starfish, and other creatures. The stars of the show are two harbor seals, on view in the outdoor pool near the entrance; watch their feedings, most days, at 11 and 4.

The town's Victorian-era municipal building, built in 1876, displays Archibald Willard's painting The Spirit of '76. Many visitors, familiar since childhood with this image of the three Revolutionary veterans with fife, drum, and flag, are surprised to find the original in an otherwise unassuming town hall. Also on-site is a small naval museum exploring Marblehead's maritime past.

A dirt track leads to the island's highest point, Altar Rock (101 feet), and the view is spectacular. The hill overlooks approximately 4,000 acres of rare coastal heathland laced with paths leading in every direction.

Literary fans (and those particularly fond of Moby-Dick) will want to visit this historical 18th-century house where Herman Melville lived and wrote his most famous works. After viewing all the exhibits, take a walk around the meadow that boasts over 100 species of wildflowers, hike a trail, or just enjoy the majestic view of Mt. Greylock, the inspiration for Melville's white whale.

Tours on the hour.

Passing through the Hoosac River Valley, the paved 12.7-mile Ashuwillticook (pronounced Ash-oo-will-ti-cook) trail links Adams with Pittsfield. The trail follows an old railroad, passing through rugged woodland and alongside Cheshire Reservoir. Walkers, joggers, cyclists, in-line skaters, and cross-country skiers all enjoy this route.