Arnold Arboretum
North America's oldest public arboretum — Olmsted-designed, Harvard-run, and free to enter under a 1,000-year lease with the city.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Boston offline.
Founded in 1872 on land gifted by James Arnold and Benjamin Bussey, this free Harvard-affiliated park holds 150 years of living plant science. Its collection concentrates on temperate trees from eastern North America and East Asia, sourced through expeditions that began with botanist Ernest Henry Wilson's Japan travels and continue today. It is the second-largest link in Boston's Emerald Necklace.
What to look for
- East Asian trees tracing back to Ernest Henry Wilson's early 20th-century collecting expeditions in Japan and China
- Frederick Law Olmsted's landscape design, readable as a deliberate 'link' connecting Boston's Emerald Necklace parks
- The Weld Hill Research Building (opened 2011), where active botanical science still runs alongside the public paths
Free entry year-round; spread across the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston.
Arnold Arboretum is one of 31 sights worth the detour in Boston, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Boston pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Boston
- Museum of Fine Arts BostonFour hundred and fifty thousand works of art under one roof — one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas.
- TD 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.
- Harvard 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.
- Fenway ParkThe oldest active ballpark in MLB, where a cramped city block accidentally invented some of baseball's most famous features.
- Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumIn 1990, thieves walked out with thirteen works worth $500 million — none have ever come back, and the case is still open.
- Boston Public LibraryJohn Adams' personal 3,800-volume library lives here — and any Massachusetts adult can walk in and access it.