Boston + Salem, MA - Getaway

I want to start out by saying that the Walk into History Freedom Trail Tour was full of great information and our guide was excellent! The Freedom Trail Foundation, who runs the tours, is dedicated to the preservation of the Freedom Train and its historical sites. There are 16 official sites along the Trail, and they are an assortment of museums and historic markers, churches and meeting houses, burying grounds and parks, and even a ship. These sites give an accurate and historical account of events that led to the American Revolution, and how those events have shaped Boston and our country today. 

At the end I will share with you my feedback on this specific tour and if I would recommend it or not, but first I want to tell you about some of the incredible historical things we saw and learned. And learned we did!  My 10 year old was actually sharing some of the stories when we got home, and I was pleasantly surprised how many of the details he remembered. 

Here are the things that we saw along the way - 

• Boston Common - established in 1634; America’s oldest public park; bought by the puritans and used for animal grazing and for public punishment; used during Revolutionary War to train the British troops; hosted Civil Rights rallies with speakers such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Pope John Paul II held mass at the park 

• Massachusetts State House - the ‘new’ and current State House built in 1798; home to the Massachusetts legislative and executive branches

• Park Street Church - built in 1809 at the site of Boston’s town granary; known as Brimstone Corner, because the church was used to store gunpowder during the War of 1812; the song “America” was introduced on the front steps; abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison gave his first anti-slavery speech here in 1829

• Granary Burying Ground - many of America's earliest notable citizens are buried here including three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine; Peter Faneuil, benefactor of the famed downtown Boston landmark; patriot and craftsman Paul Revere; James Otis, Revolutionary orator and lawyer; and five victims of the Boston Massacre.

• King's Chapel & King's Chapel Burying Ground - Boston’s first Anglican church; current chapel built in 1754; Boston’s oldest English burying ground. 

• Boston Latin School site/Benjamin Franklin statue - the oldest public school in America; initially offered free education to boys of all economic backgrounds, but not girls; five of the signers of the Declaration of Independence attended the school including Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, and William Hooper; a statue of Benjamin Franklin currently stands on the location of the original building

• Old Corner Bookstore - Boston’s oldest commercial building; home to publishers Ticknor and Fields who published important titles such as Thoreau’s Walden, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Longfellow's “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”, and many others; 

• Old South Meeting House - built as a Puritan meeting house in 1729; one of the nation’s most important colonial sites; one of the earliest museums of American history; site of the tea tax debates that led to the Boston Tea Party; many famous congregation members including Phillis Wheatley, Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin and his family

• Old State House - built in 1713, it is the oldest surviving public building in Boston; originally called the “Town House;”  The Declaration of Independence was read from its balcony; sits within feet of the site of the Boston Massacre.

• Boston Massacre site - the place where colonists and Redcoats met and fought on March 5, 1770 due to occupation and taxation; in the end, five Bostonians were killed by gunfire - Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr; led to the start of the American Revolution

• Faneuil Hall - built in 1742 where it served as a marketplace and meeting hall; known as "the home of free speech" and the "Cradle of Liberty;" hosted America's first Town Meeting; became vital in revolutionary events that formed America’s history. 

I promise to always be honest with you about how things went for us on a trip. We knew going into it that the tour size would not be capped and that the tour was 90 minutes long, so I take full responsibility when I say, I would not take my kids on this tour again but only for two main reasons. First, there were more than 40 people on our tour. The size made it very hard to hear at times, even when the guide was using a voice amplifier. Also, this made navigating around the tour route in a timely manner very difficult. Several times the guide started speaking before the entire group was there meaning we missed important parts of the story. 

Also, while my 10 year old seemed to do fine with the length of the tour, but my 8 year old was ready to be done around the 1 hour mark. Again, if I had thought this through, I probably could have guessed this. 

With all of that being said, I would suggest looking into a smaller tour, and perhaps breaking up the length by doing more than one tour. There are also plenty of online self-guided walking tours that you can take along the Freedom Trail with your family to go at your own pace and see the sites that are most important to you.

So, while I would not necessarily recommend this particular tour, I do highly recommend you see as much of the Freedom Trail as you can!