Boston, by Any Other Name, Offers Historic Vacation Opportunities

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Photo by hasan zaidi - Getty Images

Swan Boat on The Lagoon - Boston

Visitors enjoy a ride on a swan boat on the lagoon in the Boston Public Garden adjacent to the Boston Common.

You can often tell the popularity of a city by the number of nicknames it has accumulated over time. Whether it’s referred to as the “Athens of America,” “the Walking City,” “Beantown” or “the Cradle of Liberty,” Boston is all of those identities rolled together … and more. Although located on the Atlantic Ocean, there are no beaches to distract your attention. But the capital of Massachusetts is closer than just about anywhere else to the heartbeat of the American spirit, thanks to its deep sense of history and the role it has played in the formation of America.

Visitors from Milwaukee can fly directly from Mitchell International Airport (MKE) to Boston’s Logan International Airport (BOS) on JetBlue daily with one-way fares as low as $104. It’s a small price to pay to take a trip back in time and better understand the nation’s heritage. Click here to view flight times and book your nonstop flight!

And, yes, there is still a Boston bar called Cheers at 84 Beacon St., but it’s unlikely everyone will know your name. And, yes, Fenway Park at 4 Jersey St. is as important a city destination as it is a baseball icon. They can both be explored by themselves or as part of narrated city walking tours.

Cradle of Liberty

But the biggest draw for the Cradle of Liberty—a sobriquet Boston shares with Philadelphia—is the role it played in the American Revolution and the creation of the United States of America. Walking or motorized tours can be booked for a fee, but the best part of visiting Boston is that many of history’s greatest hits are available free of charge. Just find your way to the Freedom Trail, a 2.5-mile red brick trail that takes in the many of the key sites made famous in the American Revolution.

Start at the Boston Common, founded in 1634 and America’s oldest park. The park’s 50 acres held its share of meetings among colonists tired of British rule, and over the years also has hosted speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Pope John Paul II, not to mention in 1968 attracting 100,000 fans for what turned out to be singer Judy Garland’s largest-ever concert.

Across the way is the Massachusetts State House, built in 1798 and still functional today underneath a copper dome created in 1802 by patriot Paul Revere’s copper company. Further along the trail you’ll find the Park Street Church, once at 217 feet Boston’s tallest building, which still holds Sunday services and is open for tours June through August.

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Granary Burial Ground in Boston

Granary Burial Ground in Boston

Next is the Granary Burying Ground, the final resting place of Revolutionary War patriots Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and the five victims of the Boston Massacre. Further along is the King’s Chapel and Burying Ground, where you will find the remains of Mary Chilton, the first European woman to set foot in the New World as she descended from the Mayflower, and the gravestone of Elizabeth Pain, said to have inspired aspects of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s character Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.

Freedom Trail

The 16 stops along the Freedom trail are rife with historical anecdotes, but several stand out as central our country’s fight for freedom:

• the three-masted heavy frigate USS Constitution, aka “Old Ironsides”, is tethered to a pier in the Charlestown Navy Yard, offering tours for a fee;
• the Boston Massacre site at the intersection of State and Congress streets outside the Old State House, is where British troops incited a riot with a group of unarmed citizens, killing five in the process, including former slave Crispus Attucks who led the colonists’ group;
• Faneuil Hall Marketplace (known as “the home of free speech”) and the Paul Revere House, home to the metalsmith and patriot and from which he launched his famous “Midnight Ride”.

The Freedom Trail ends in neighboring Charlestown at the Bunker Hill Monument, which commemorates the first major battle of the Revolutionary War. Many lives were lost on both sides, but the Battle of Bunker Hill was the first step toward freedom from England and the birth of a new country that went on to become a great democracy. And that’s worth a closer look from any of us.