Day 4: Natick and Framingham
After several days of travel in the car, we planned one day where we wouldn’t have to sit in gridlocked traffic entering the city. Since our hotel was in a suburb of Boston we set out to explore the surrounding area. Our discoveries led us to a very nice mall in Natick where we visited the American Girl shop and several other upscale retailers. For lunch, we ate at California Pizza Kitchen in the mall. Afterwards, we ventured to nearby Framingham for putt-putt. Our daughter has never played before so it was fun teaching her how to hold a putter. Also, the game was fun because I was the family winner! Day 4 came to a close at Ben and Jerry’s where we all tried new ice cream flavors. The pace was slower, but it was still a really fun day.
Day 5: Boston
The only rainy day of the trip was reserved for an indoor visit to the Boston Museum of Science. We sipped our coffee and ate our doughnuts as we waited in bumper-to-bumper traffic into the city. Peak travel times are very difficult to navigate by vehicle in Boston. If you are able, I would suggest using public transit and staying in the city. However, we knew ahead of time that patience would be required commuting from our suburban hotel so we made the most of it. I kept a bag in the car of activities for our daughter and I think my husband and I learned the lyrics to every iHeart radio top 40 song over the course of our stay in Boston. (I’m even working toward knowing the Spanish lyrics to Despacito) We made waiting in traffic a fun time!
As for the museum, it was wonderful. Three floors of interactive science lessons and activities filled our entire day. Arianna is in a stage where she is really interested in how things work so it was fantastic to use this visit as a learning tool. We’ve visited our local science museum (COSI), but she’s always been too young to take much learning away from those trips. It was fun to watch her learn about gravity, the human body, dinosaurs. space, and the life cycle of animals.
The drive back to our hotel for the night was even worse than the drive into the city. We ended up using Siri who took us on an impromptu driving tour of Harvard University in Cambridge. It was a lovely campus nestled on the water. I wanted to take photographs, but alas, Siri’s directions were more important at the time.
Day 6: Boston
The final day of our family adventures began by packing and checking out of the hotel. One thing we liked about Extended Stay America was that we were able to do all of our laundry on-site. Boston was only the beginning of a much longer trip as we were scheduled to fly to London from Logan Airport, so it was nice to wash all of our clothes and not arrive to England with suitcases full of dirty laundry.
After our check-out we still had five hours before we needed to arrive at the airport. We decided to look at a local bookstore in Westborough called Tatnuck. This hometown bookstore was one of the coolest I’ve ever seen. The front of the building was made up of aisles and aisles of gifts, jewelry, and clothes. We spent a long time just going through this section. Then, there was a coffee shop. And in the back and center of the store stood hundreds of shelves of books. If we hadn’t been nervous about travel time to the city we would have stayed for hours.
We still made it into Boston with hours to spare so we parked at Copley Square (For a ridiculous price) and walked around the shops, toured Old South church, and saw the location of the Boston Marathon Finish Line. We finished our visit with a nice lunch and then made our way to the airport where we returned our rental car and checked-in for our evening flight.
Overall, I loved Boston and I can’t wait to go back someday. We spent a lot of time in the car and if that’s something that bothers you I would first recommend flying to Boston instead of driving and then also I would recommend staying in the city as well and using public transit.
If we end up back in Boston one day some other things I’d like to do include: Duck Tours, seafood on the piers, visit Cape Cod/Martha’s Vineyard, historic museums and boating. It’s hard to fit everything in to such a short visit while also accommodating a four year old. We are lucky she’s such a great traveler, but there is still so much to do an see in Boston.
Thanks for following our adventures–now off to England for more memory making!!
The Ameri Brit Mom
The Ameri Brit Mom 