US
What to see in Boston on foot
31 sights worth the detour, all walkable, all offline.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Boston offline.
Boston is a city made for walking. This self-guided guide maps 31 of its sights worth the detour — landmarks, historic sites, museums and galleries and parks and gardens — the places locals point to and the tour buses skip, close enough to string into a single day on foot. Download the Boston pack in Voyage GO before you go and the whole route works offline: no roaming, no dead battery from a live map. Every monument, viewpoint and park you pass quietly fills your travel passport.
Landmarks10
- 1TD GardenThe subway stops underneath it — TD Garden is built directly above MBTA's North Station, so you step off the train and you are already at the door.
- 2Fenway ParkThe oldest active ballpark in MLB, where a cramped city block accidentally invented some of baseball's most famous features.
- 3Boston Public LibraryJohn Adams' personal 3,800-volume library lives here — and any Massachusetts adult can walk in and access it.
- 4Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & SmithsonianThe lab that produced the first-ever image of a black hole sits right on the Harvard campus.
- 5John Hancock TowerThe skyscraper whose 500-pound window panes used to detach and fall from any of its 60 floors onto pedestrians below.
- 6Prudential TowerIn 1964 this was the tallest building in North America outside New York City — and the tower next door only exists because of it.
- 7Boston Children's HospitalThe hospital that has held the U.S. News #1 pediatric ranking for ten consecutive years anchors Harvard's Longwood medical campus.
- 8Copley SquareStand at Dartmouth and Boylston: Romanesque Revival, Italian Renaissance, and a 790-foot glass tower all stare each other down across one square.
- 9Symphony HallA Harvard physics professor did the acoustic math in 1899 — the science held, and this is still ranked among the world's top three concert halls.
- 10Boston City HallArchitects gave it a 1969 AIA Honor Award; the public widely condemned it. Boston's Brutalist city hall has drawn fierce argument between professional praise and public contempt ever since.
Historic Sites12
- 11Harvard College ObservatoryOn the night of July 16-17, 1850, astronomers here made the first daguerreotype of a star — Vega — through a telescope that was the largest in North America.
- 12Smithsonian Astrophysical ObservatoryFounded in 1890 to measure "the amount and character of the Sun's heat," this observatory's solar research likely inspired the Smithsonian's own sunburst logo.
- 13Massachusetts General HospitalThe third-oldest general hospital in the United States, designed by Charles Bulfinch — its first patient, a sailor, walked in on September 3, 1821.
- 14Boston GardenThe arena where every seat was close enough to see sweat on the boxers' brows — and visiting NBA teams hated every inch of it.
- 15Faneuil HallThe room where colonists argued themselves toward revolution — and kept arguing ever since.
- 16Massachusetts State HousePaul Revere presided over the cornerstone ceremony on July 4, 1795 — the Commonwealth has been governed from this hill ever since.
- 17Freedom TrailWalk the streets where colonial Bostonians argued, marched, and died — a 2.5-mile path linking 16 sites from Boston Common to Charlestown.
- 18Big DigA $2.8 billion promise that became a $14.6 billion saga — and left Boston with a park where a highway once ran.
- 19Old North ChurchOn April 18, 1775, two lanterns hung in this steeple sent Paul Revere riding — the signal that triggered a revolution.
- 20Bunker Hill MonumentThe battle was fought on Breed's Hill, not Bunker Hill — and the 221-foot granite obelisk took 18 years and two funding halts to finish.
- 21Old State HouseBoston's oldest surviving public building (1713) once stood taller than everything else in the city — and it still holds the same ground.
- 22Brook FarmIn 1841, Boston intellectuals tried building a society where everyone picked their own work and split the profits equally — it lasted six years before an uninsured fire took everything.
Museums & Galleries7
- 23Museum of Fine Arts BostonFour hundred and fifty thousand works of art under one roof — one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas.
- 24Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumIn 1990, thieves walked out with thirteen works worth $500 million — none have ever come back, and the case is still open.
- 25John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and MuseumThe building I. M. Pei designed to hold a president's era — not just his papers, but the complete record of it.
- 26Museum of Bad ArtThe only museum on earth dedicated exclusively to art that tried sincerely and failed spectacularly.
- 27Peabody Museum of Archaeology and EthnologyTen thousand years of human life in the Americas, bankrolled by a single financier's 1866 gift and still growing.
- 28Harvard Art MuseumsThree collections, one Renzo Piano glass roof — and conservation labs that have been running since 1928.
- 29Museum of Comparative ZoologyDarwin's 1834 fossil and one of Captain Cook's birds share a building with 21 million other specimens.
Parks & Gardens2
- 30Boston CommonThe oldest city park in the United States — 50 acres where Puritan settlers put down roots starting in 1630.
- 31Arnold ArboretumNorth America's oldest public arboretum — Olmsted-designed, Harvard-run, and free to enter under a 1,000-year lease with the city.