347 Best Sights in Massachusetts, USA

Also known as the "Blacksmith House," this yellow Colonial is now owned by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. The tree itself is long gone, but this spot inspired Longfellow's lines: "Under a spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands." The blacksmith's shop, today commemorated by a granite marker, was next door, at the corner of Story Street. Although not open to the public, you can catch a glimpse inside during the celebrated Blacksmith House Poetry Series, which runs throughout the year on Monday nights. Tickets are $5.

From late June through September, this public-arts project presents visual and performing arts events including exhibitions, video screenings, site-specific installations, and opening galas and performances.

You've got to really look for the garage doors that mark the entrance to this zero-frills local taproom. Once you make it inside the industrial space, you can sample flights of Downeast's fresh, unfiltered cider varieties—many of which are only available at the cider house. While many breweries these days welcome the whole family, this isn't one of those places. Of course kids are allowed, but they must remain seated and Downeast does not serve any food.  There's limited seating and no standing room so you may have to wait for a table.

One of five lighthouses on Martha's Vineyard, the 40-foot structure was built out of cast iron in 1876 to replace an 1828 tower that burned down. The lighthouse is open seasonally on Sunday evenings around sunset; the views of Nantucket Sound from atop the bluff are spectacular. Parking is limited.

Originally built in the 1800s for textile manufacturing, this refurbished mill is a bustling example of how North Adams has reinvented its industrial past into an arts-focused future. In one building, you can visit a spacious artist-run gallery and several arts-based businesses, including a bookstore, a pottery studio, a movement studio, and an independent gallery. Keep an eye out for open-studio tours held by the individual artists who work there.

Surrounded by a public beach, this cast-iron tower was floated by barge from Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1939. It is still an active navigational aid. Renovations from 2005 to 2007 included the installation of a spiral staircase that visitors can ascend for great views. There's a touching memorial to children who have died, in the form of engraved granite cobblestones, surrounding the lighthouse. In 2001, the lighthouse was dedicated as the Children's Memorial. 

Explore the eccentric artwork and offbeat humor of the late acclaimed artist and illustrator. Regularly changing exhibitions, arranged in the downstairs rooms of Gorey's former home, include drawings of his oddball characters and reveal the mysterious psyche of the sometimes dark but always playful illustrator.

Located adjacent to the JFK Library and Museum, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate offers another view of the workings of the U.S. government, this one through the lens of the Senate and one of its most influential members. Interactive exhibits take visitors through a day in the life of a senator, and the highlight is the stunning full-scale representation of the Senate Chamber. In addition, there’s an exact reproduction of Senator Kennedy’s office, complete with photos of his family, model ships, and letters from his mother. It's definitely worth planning to visit both Kennedy attractions.

Shortly after its construction in 1767, this three-story Georgian house was abandoned by its owner, Colonial governor Thomas Oliver. Also known as the Oliver-Gerry-Lowell House, it was home to the accomplished Lowell family for two centuries. Elmwood is now the Harvard University president's residence, ever since student riots in 1969 drove president Nathan Pusey from his house in Harvard Yard. Although it's not open to the public, it affords a nice view from the street.

This new memorial in the Boston Common was created as a permanent honor to the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, their love, and powerful presence in Boston.

The famed Amherst poet lived and wrote in this brick Federal-style home. Admission is by guided tour only, and to say that the tour guides are knowledgeable would be a massive understatement; the highlight of the tour is the sunlit bedroom where the poet wrote many of her works. Next door is The Evergreens, the imposing Italianate Victorian mansion in which Emily's brother Austin and his family resided for more than 50 years.

Built in 1860, this Back Bay Gothic Episcopal church is popular among classical music lovers—every Sunday morning at 10, from September to May, as part of the liturgy, a Bach cantata, and music by Schütz, Mendelssohn, and others, including music written by living composers, is performed; guest conductors have included Christopher Hogwood and Seiji Ozawa. From May to September, the Chapel Choir, comprised of both professional and volunteer singers, performs.

Near the corner of Beacon and Arlington streets, the Arthur Fiedler Footbridge crosses Storrow Drive to the 3-mile-long Esplanade and the Hatch Memorial Shell. The free summer concerts here include the Boston Pops' immensely popular televised July 4 performance. For shows like this, Bostonians haul lawn chairs and blankets to the lawn in front of the shell; bring a takeout lunch from a nearby restaurant, find an empty spot—no mean feat, so come early—and you'll feel right at home. An impressive stone bust of the late maestro Arthur Fiedler watches over the walkers, joggers, picnickers, and sunbathers who fill the Esplanade's paths on pleasant days. Here, too, is the turn-of-the-20th-century Union Boat Club Boathouse, headquarters for the country's oldest private rowing club. You can also access the park by crossing the Frances Appleton Pedestrian Bridge linking the Beacon Hill neighborhood to the Esplanade.

Tiny, but well worth the 15 minutes you'll spend here if you're already in the neighborhood, this operating theater is open to the public because of its historical significance. In fact, it served as Mass General Hospital's first operating room, in use from 1821 to 1867, and it was here where the world witnessed the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia, in 1846. Today, the room contains two 19th-century operating chairs complete with red velvet to mask patients' blood, early surgical tools, a teaching skeleton, and, interestingly, an authentic Egyptian mummy.

The nearly 200-acre Mass Audubon preserve, 3 miles outside Edgartown toward Vineyard Haven, has 4 miles of hiking trails traversing marshland, fields, woods, seashore, and fresh and saltwater ponds. Naturalist-led events include hikes, stargazing, wildlife walks, and kayaking tours.

This 1872 structure, at the corner of Clarendon Street and Commonwealth Avenue, was architect Henry Hobson Richardson's first foray into Romanesque Revival. It was originally erected for the Brattle Square Unitarian Society, but Richardson ran over budget and the church went bankrupt and dissolved. In 1882, the building was bought by the Baptists. The figures on each side of its 176-foot soaring tower were sculpted by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty. The friezes represent four points at which God enters an individual's life: baptism, communion, marriage, and death. The tower is undergoing a huge restoration project to help it weather the years to come. Call ahead on a weekday and you may be given an informal tour.

The world headquarters and mother church of the Christian Science faith mixes the traditional with the modern—marrying Bernini to Le Corbusier by combining an old-world basilica with a sleek office complex designed by I. M. Pei & Partners and Araldo Cossutta, Associated Architects. Mary Baker Eddy's original granite First Church of Christ, Scientist (1894) has since been enveloped by a domed Renaissance Revival basilica, added to the site in 1906, and both church buildings are now surrounded by the offices of the Christian Science Publishing Society, where the Christian Science Monitor is produced, and by Cossutta's complex of church-administration structures completed in 1973. You can hear all 13,000-plus pipes of the church's famed Aeolian-Skinner organ during Sunday services.

The outer reflection pool, small fountains, and surrounding area (together with the church and the Mary Baker Eddy Library, the area is known as the Christian Science Plaza) received a major face-lift recently to include more walkways and sitting areas. Church tours are held Friday and Saturday at 11 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm, and on Sunday at 1 pm and 3 pm.

The tower of this church provides the best view of Nantucket—for those willing to climb its 92 steps. Rising 120 feet, the tower is capped by a weather vane depicting a whale catch. Tours are offered Thursday through Saturday from Memorial Day to mid-October.

A great spot for watching sunsets over Cape Cod Bay, First Encounter Beach is rich in history. Near the parking lot, a bronze marker commemorates the first encounter between local Native Americans and passengers from the Mayflower, led by Captain Myles Standish, who explored the entire area for five weeks in 1620 before moving on to Plymouth. The beach is popular with families who favor its warm, calm waters and tide pools. Amenities: parking (fee); showers; toilets. Best for: sunset; swimming; walking; windsurfing.

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.

A National Historic Landmark, this is the nation's oldest continuously operating merry-go-round. Handcrafted in 1876—the horses have real horsehair and glass eyes—and brought from Coney Island in 1884, the ride gives children a taste of entertainment from an era before smartphones. Kids delight in trying to grab the brass ring for a free ride.

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.

Magnificent views of Marblehead, of the harbor, the Misery Islands, and the Atlantic are best enjoyed from this fort built in 1644 atop the rocky cliffs of the harbor. Used as a defense against the French in 1742 as well as during the War of 1812, Ft. Sewall is today open to the public as community parkland. Barracks and underground quarters can still be seen, and Revolutionary War reenactments by members of the modern-day Glover's Marblehead Regiment are staged at the fort annually.

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.

This modernist property on a 46-acre site exhibits the works of American abstract artists Suzy Frelinghuysen and George L. K. Morris, as well as those of their contemporaries, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris. In addition to the paintings, frescoes, and sculptures on display, a 57-minute documentary on Frelinghuysen and Morris plays on a continuous loop. Tours are offered on the hour—just be aware that it's a long walk to the house. Painting demonstrations and workshops occasionally take place.

This brick lighthouse (also called the Aquinnah Lighthouse) was successfully moved back from its precarious perch atop the rapidly eroding cliffs in spring 2015. Bad weather may affect its hours. Parking can be limited here, but views are outstanding.

The museum houses a fascinating private art collection that includes a salon gallery with 19th-century American paintings by Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt, as well as a Japanese antiquities room filled with armor, textiles, porcelain, and carved jade. Lovers of architecture will appreciate the Italian palazzo-style building, built in 1896, with fully restored original Tiffany stained glass windows—the windows are rare examples of Tiffany work commissioned for a museum building.

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 beach has calm, waveless waters and soft sand, and is surrounded by grassy dunes, making it perfect any time of year. In summer (June, July, and August), it is lifeguard patrolled and wheelchair accessible, and there is a snack bar if you don't feel like packing in food. The restrooms and showers are also accessible, and you can pick up beach toys at the concessions. On weekdays parking is plentiful, but the lot fills by 10 am on weekends. Reserve a space online to avoid disappointment. In June, green flies can be bothersome. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards; parking (fee); showers; toilets. Best for: swimming; walking.