Day TripsDay trips in New England are both diverse and plentiful. New England offers everything from small quaint historic towns, camping and the great outdoors, to amusement parks, the Big Dig, and whale watching in Boston Harbor. You can get to the beach, the mountains, the big city, a country town all within an hour or two. The charm and lure of the sea draw visitors north. The Oceanside town of Winthrop is minutes from downtown Boston. Winthrop’s beaches are popular destinations for festivals and special events throughout the summer. Lexington and Concord both have notable historical sites that are very near Boston if you are interested in Revolutionary War history. The Lexington Visitor’s Center offers information about sites around the area; the Buckman Tavern, where the Minutemen gathered to await the British, is across the street from Lexington Green, the Old Burying Ground, with graves dating from 1690, is west of the Green, and the Minuteman Statue is on the Green. Minute Man National Historical Park is between Lexington and Concord, and will tell you the stories of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in a fascinating multi-media presentation. You can retrace the steps of the battle on the “Battle Road Trail,” and visit Concord’s North Bridge, where the “shot heard ‘round the world” was fired. Concord also has several attractions that should be of interest to any reader of American literature. The Wayside, a home in which Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Alcott family, and Margaret Sidney lived, is fascinating to tour; there’s an entrance in a former barn that has exhibits on the authors, and the house itself has some very odd rooms. If you visit Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, you can see the graves of Louisa May Alcott, Thoreau, Emerson, and Hawthorne on Author’s Ridge. Orchard House, described by Alcott in “Little Women,” and “The Old Manse”, home to Hawthorne and Emerson, are also available to tour. The Concord Museum and Emerson House have information about authors who lived in Concord, and the museum also houses Paul Revere’s lantern. Concord is a charming town, visiting there should be a delight for anyone with literary interest. Plymouth is south of Boston. Well-known for Plymouth Rock, where the Pilgrims were said to have first landed in America, Plymouth also has many other attractions, such as the replica of the “Mayflower,” the ship the Pilgrims used to reach America. Plimoth Plantation has a Pilgrim village, with costumed actors who show what daily life was back in the 1600s and use the speech mannerisms of that century, and an Indian village where traditional Native American crafts are shown. There are many shops and restaurants along the harbor of Plymouth, and many beautifully-restored historic homes are in the town. Nearby, historic Salem is one of the country’s oldest cities. Salem is best known for its “witchy” attractions; Salem was the site of the Witch Trials of 1692, and the impressive Salem Witch Museum has a performance that will tell you all about the events that took place then. There are several other witch museums and houses, and also a dungeon and village. Salem is also home to the Peabody Essex Museum, which contains over a million artifacts and information on many interesting subjects, and the House of Seven Gables, made famous by author Nathaniel Hawthorne in his book of the same name. You can spend an interesting day in Salem, and it’s an easy city to navigate; you can park your vehicle and walk to most attractions or ride the Salem Trolley. A whale-watching trip would make a good day trip from Boston, and there are many locations from which you can leave, including Gloucester, Salem, Plymouth, Cape Cod, Newburyport, and the New England Aquarium at Central Wharf in Boston. All of the whale-watching boats take you to the Stellwagen Bank or Jeffrey’s Ledge, where the whales like to spend time eating, and as the boats share information about where the whales are, seeing one is pretty much guaranteed. The most common whales to be seen in Massachusetts Bay are the humpbacks, although minke, fins, right whales and others are spotted at times on the trips. Dolphins and seabirds can also be seen, and the naturalist on board will tell you all about the whales and the ocean. The whale-watching trips last from 3 to 4 ½ hours, and it’s a good idea to take along a jacket in case the weather gets cooler while you’re out on the water.
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