Boston
USA East Coast
Of all the great US East coast cities, Boston remains our favourite. It’s easy to get to, hasn’t lost its sense of scale and proportion, is easy to get around and enjoy and has a great selection of gay bars, restaurants and clubs.
Take a mid-morning flight and just six hours later you can be enjoying an after lunch coffee on the terrace of your hotel. Logan Airport is just two subway stops or 15 minutes in a taxi to downtown, so avoiding the long slog into the city so common with other US destinations. And when it’s time to come home, the morning daylight flight arriving in the early evening avoids the red-eye dread of a US holiday.
Boston has history no other US city can match. Everywhere you turn, almost 400 year old buildings are dwarfed by 4 year old office blocks yet the scale is not out of proportion. The tree lined streets make it a simple pleasure just to stroll around this amazingly compact city. Just an hours walking takes you from South End to Back Bay with plenty of time to stop and stare in between.
The history comes with the Founding Fathers, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere and his "one by land, two by sea" to tell how the English were coming at the start of the War of Independence, the USS Constitution and the fact that this is the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts". Take the hop-on hop-off narrated trolley tour of the sites or walk around the busy streets, maybe stopping off on Boston Common remembering Ryan O’Neil skating with Ali McGraw in Love Story.
Or marvel at how 17th century burial grounds and churches can fit into a city landscape of ubiquitous Starbucks and city suited workers.
There's great shopping too. The large department stores of Macy’s and the like huddle around Downtown Crossing or the smaller speciality shops and restaurants around Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. Or take a bus tour to Kittery Outlet mall and shop till you drop for designer labels at prices around half of the UK.
Like any large and diverse city, Boston’s gay scene can be a little hard to find. Bars and gay-owned restaurants are scattered through out the city but with a concentration in Cambridge – the student land just across the Charles River and home to M.I.T and Harvard and in the Southside/Back Bay area.
Boston works very well as a short break destination because of its short flight time, daylight return flights and easy accessibility from the UK. It can easily be coupled with Provincetown – the self styled Gay Capitol of the East – just 90 minutes fast ferry away across the bay or a 2 ½ drive though the pretty Cape Cod scenery. Our women's resort - The Highlands Inn– is just 3 hours drive away up I-93.
Some things to do in Boston:
• Eat an ice-cream whilst walking on Boston Common.
• View they city from the Prudential Building Skywalk.
• Search for Charlie on the MTA (now called just the T).
• Wonder how Old Ironsides could ever have been called this.
• Shop for bargains in Copley Place.
Accommodation