If you know anything about Boston, you know it’s basically known for two things: 1) the American Revolution and 2) Sports!

Now since I don’t like to get into too much controversy here on my blog, let’s stick with the American Revolution ; ) 

Seriously though, no matter where you’re from, when you think “Boston,” you think “American Revolution.” Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock…they were all Bostonians. And you pretty much can’t go anywhere in Boston where one of those guys didn’t do something historically significant. 

The history is EVERYWHERE. 

And the best way to see everything is the Freedom Trail. The Freedom Trail is a 2.5 mile walking trail that takes you past 17 official (and countless more) historical sites of Colonial and Revolutionary Boston.

The trail starts at the Boston Commons and winds through downtown, the north end, and across the river to Charlestown. 

And you’re not going to need a map or GPS to navigate. The trail is marked by a red brick line (sometimes it’s painted) the entire way. 

You cannot mess this up ; ) 

Boston Revolutionary War Sites

I went on my first trip to New England earlier this year (I loved it! I’ll be back!) and on the quick day and a half I had in Boston, my priority was doing the Freedom Trail and seeing as many of the Revolutionary War sites as possible. 

So here’s everything you need to know about it: 

The Freedom Trail

Okay, 2.5 miles and here’s the scoop: 

The trail starts in Boston Commons and the first place you’ll want to go is the Boston Commons Visitor Center. It’s pretty easy to walk to if you’re staying in the middle of Boston, but the “Park Street” T Station (red and green lines) is also right there. 

The Visitor Center is where most of the guided tours leave from. It’s also where you’ll want to buy a guide book/map if you’re doing the trail on your own. And there are public restrooms. 

While the trail is well marked and there are plaques here and there telling you what you’re looking at, you’re going to want more context than that. So I would strongly recommend buying one of the little guidebooks (more like a hearty brochure) that they stock in the Visitor Center. 

I went with the Complete Guide to Boston’s Freedom Trail by Charles Bahne because they told me it was the most in depth. You might be able to find an older copy online (the 4th edition is the current one) if you want to read it and plan in advance, otherwise pick it up here. 

The little map they were selling with a few sentences about each stop was $3 so it seemed pretty reasonable to pay $10 for the booklet. And honestly, there is so much information in here that I can’t imagine you’d get anything more from the 90 minute guided tour. It’s probably where the tour guides learn their facts ; ) 

So what’s included on the Freedom Trail? 

There are 17 official sites: 

Boston Common

Massachusetts State House

Park Street Church

Granary Burying Ground

King’s Chapel

Boston Latin School Site

Old Corner Book Store

Old South Meeting-House

Old State House

Boston Massacre Site

Faneuil Hall

Paul Revere House

Old North Church

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground

U.S.S Constitution

Charlestown Navy Yard

Bunker Hill

Plus the book also covers smaller sites in the vicinity and a lot of historical background if you’re not up to speed on your 5th grade history lessons ; ) 

Honestly, I felt like with the booklet I was able to see and learn soooo much just walking the trail on my own. 

Freedom Trail Guided Tours

So I obviously went with the DIY approach, but if you like a guided tour…good news…you’ve got options!

Let’s start with the free ones. The Freedom Trail is affiliated with the National Park Service (some of the sites on the trail are part of the Boston National Historical Park) and they offer a few different tour options: 

There’s a Freedom Trail Audio Tour that you can access here or in the official NPS App. It has over 90 minutes of audio from 23 different stops. Make sure you pack headphones if you’re planning to go this route. 

The NPS also offer free ranger guided tours that operate seasonally. During the summer months, there are usually tours and events offered multiple times a day (although often not on Mondays and Tuesdays). View the calendar here. 

This summer (through October) they seem to be offering the Black Heritage Trail Tour (90 minutes) and the Freedom Trail: Enemies of this Country Tour (60 minutes) multiple times a day Wednesday through Sunday. And the Muskets, Men, and Liberty Tour (30 minutes) multiple times a day on Saturdays and Sundays. Plus there’s a handful of other themed tours and events. Find all of the tour options and events here. 

These tours and events are all free, and can get crowded. None of them cover the entire length of the Freedom Trail and most begin at one of the NPS’ two Visitor Centers: Faneuil Hall Visitor Center or the Charlestown Navy Yard Visitor Center.

Besides the NPS, there are a handful of third party operators that offer tours along the Freedom Trail. These are the official tours. “Walk into History” is the most popular tour and it covers the first mile or so of the trail between the Visitors Center in Boston Commons and Faneuil Hall. There’s also a “North End” tour that covers the trail past Faneuil Hall and more niche tours like “Revolutionary Women,” “African American Patriots,” and a private “Historic Pub Crawl Tour.”

The public tours cost about $17/person which is pretty reasonable for a 90 minute tour, but the groups can be pretty large. Don’t expect an intimate tour with a handful of people. 

Just based on my *personal observations,* besides being FREE, I think the NPS offers more historic and well done tours and events. But…they’re not scheduled nearly as frequently and may not work with your schedule. 

One thing you’ll need to know in advance…they are VERY adamant that your tickets to the Freedom Trail tours (not the NPS) be PRINTED and not just on your phone. They make you check like 3 boxes when you’re buying your tickets to acknowledge this. Who knows if they’ll actually turn you away if you show up without them printed, but that would be stressful for me haha. So you’ll either need to buy them in advance and print them out or find access to a printer at your hotel. 

Sites That Cost Extra $$$

A lot of the sites on the Freedom Trail are just things you’ll walk by outside, but some of them you can pay admission to go inside. 

I paid to go inside the Paul Revere House and the Old North Church ($5-6 each but only $1 for children) and even though we were only in each place for about 15 minutes, it felt worth it. The Old North Church has an extra $10 “Crypt Tour” which I 100% would have done (hello National Treasure!!) but it was still being renovated when I was there. 

You can also go inside the Old South Meeting House and Old State House ($15 for both) but I was running out of time so I skipped those. 

Also most of what you see at Faneuil Hall is just a visitor center/gift shop but you can see the historic hall/meeting room for free if it’s not in use. Both days that I stopped by it wasn’t open for visitors though. 

And while you can go aboard the USS Constitution for free, you have to pay to go inside the museum. 

Also, this doesn’t have an admission, but I want to make sure you don’t miss it…right behind the Old North Church is the Clough House. It was built in 1715 (by the same mason who helped build the church) and it’s one of the oldest domestic structures in Boston. Part of the house is a gift shop and part is set up like an old printing office with a historical interpreter that does demonstrations and speaks to groups in character. 

It is really well done and it gets crowded, but it’s definitely worth popping inside to see. And there’s a tip jar if you really enjoy it. 

What National Park Geeks Need to Know

As a self proclaimed “National Park Geek,” I’m always seeking out National Parks, National Monuments, and National Historic Sites. It can be a little confusing to navigate exactly how the NPS figures into the Freedom Trail, but here’s the overall gist: 

The Freedom Trail Foundation is a nonprofit organization that’s been working to preserve Boston’s historic sites since 1951. In 1974 the National Park Service established the Boston National Historical Park to aid with preservation and celebration ahead of the bicentennial. The NPS owns 7 of the sites on the Freedom Trail but they have a pretty sizable role in connecting the whole thing. 

So what does this mean to you? Well, I already mentioned about in person tours through the NPS plus the free audio tour in their app. 

If you’re a National Parks Passport stamp collector, it gets a little murky. The NPS has two visitor centers (Faneuil Hall & Charlestown Navy Yard – the Boston Commons Visitor Center is NOT affiliated with the NPS) so of course there are stamps there. But also there are supposed to be stamps at all/most of the other stops, but it’s not always super well marked so you have to ask. Basically, just ask everywhere you go. And ask multiple people. At Paul Revere House, the official stamp at the admission booth was pretty mangled, but someone in the gift shop pulled a different one out of a drawer. So you never know what you’ll find!

How Long Does the Freedom Trail Take? 

Well how long does it take you to walk 2.5 miles? ; ) While you can obviously walk the whole thing in about an hour, it’s going to take a LOT longer if you’re stopping to read and look at things, and even longer if you’re paying extra to go inside places like the Old North Church or Paul Revere House. 

Generally, I would break the trail up into three sections: 1) Boston Commons to Faneuil Hall, 2) Faneuil Hall through the North End, 3) Charlestown. 

I did parts 1 and 2 over the course of two days, but I was also doing quite a few other things. At the pace I like to do things (seeing things thoroughly but not spending forever), I felt like I could have easily done the entire thing in a fairly easy day. Having breakfast, starting about 10, doing lunch in the North End, going inside most places and even doing the Charlestown sites. 

I think a full day is a pretty generous time frame, but if you’re a major American Revolutionary War history buff then you could easily spend longer (sometimes things are more enjoyable if you split them up over the course of 2-3 days). But also if you’re only mildly interested, you could also do part 1 & 2 in 2-3 hours and call it a day. 

Where to Eat

Since this trail is running through the main part of Boston, there are no shortage of places to eat, but here are a couple of suggestions: 

Tatte: I LOVED this local coffee shop/bakery chain and we ended up visiting a couple different locations. You could easily have breakfast or lunch here or stop in for coffee and a pick me up. 

Italian Food in the North End: The North End is one of Boston’s must visit neighborhoods so it’s easy to kill two birds with one stone here. Visit Paul Revere’s House and duck around the corner for some of the best Italian food you’ll ever eat. There are dozens (hundreds!) of restaurants in this area, but we had lunch at Carmelina’s and I would 10/10 recommend. It’s a tiny restaurant so I would make reservations if you have a party bigger than 2. There were two of us and we showed up about 1:30 and only had to wait about 10 minutes but they weren’t really taking walk-ins for bigger groups. 

There are also some really good bakeries in the area. We were too stuffed from lunch to try any, but Modern is supposed to be the best even though evvvvvverybody was carrying around boxes from Mike’s Pastry ; ) 

Other Revolutionary War Sites in (and around) Boston

Boston Tea Party

If you know anything about the American Revolutionary War, it’s probably about the Boston Tea Party. 

Well, of course, it’s a bona fide attraction here in Boston and I had to check it out. 

Let’s get it straight up front: While the Freedom Trail is all about preserving historic sites, the Boston Tea Party experience is more about entertainment. It’s an “experience.” And it comes with a price tag. The price changes by date but during the summer months it’s about $32-40/adult and $25/child (3-12). 

It’s an hour-long experience that includes a Town Hall style meeting with Samuel Adams, going aboard an 18th century replica vessel and throwing some tea into the harbor, and a guided tour through an interactive museum. 

As a 35 year old history major who goes on tours like this for her job, I found it both entertaining/educational and cheesy/boring…sometimes at the same time. 

I’ll just give you the full rundown: The experience leans pretty heavily on costumed interpreters, but they’re not terribly historically accurate. This may not be a deal breaker, unless you’re expecting it to be. 

If you don’t care, skip on down, but if this is important to you…here’s exactly what I mean: 

Our main tour guide was a woman and she had to spend a fair bit of time in the beginning explaining why it makes sense that a woman would be here. In 1773. At an event linked to the Sons of Liberty. It felt kind of forced

Samuel Adams interrupts to come in and speak at our town meeting. The young actor who played him delivered his speeches well and had the rabble rouser thing down, but Sam Adams was an older, portly, often…ahem…drunk firebrand, not a dashing young rogue. If you have any experience with costumed interpreters who do big events/festivals/educational fairs, just know that it’s not what you’d expect from the highest level. 

Okay, let’s talk a bit about the pacing…it’s an hour long experience. Parts were well done and entertaining/educational and some parts really dragged. 

You start off in the town hall meeting and I think that’s probably the best done bit. It’s all talking, but it feels more like theater and they really want you to get interactive…stomping your feet, yelling, etc. That was were most adults seemed most engaged. 

From there you walk down the gang plank onto the boat. There’s another female guide on the boat that tells some stories and leads the “throwing the tea into the harbor” charade, but this is the part that dragged the most. 

The boat is actually pretty small and it seemed like we spent a disproportionate amount of time waiting for everyone to get on the boat, then climb the stairs down below and walk through the ship, and then come back up to the top. 

It was mostly walking in a line through the ship while you heard a bit about what they actually did at the Boston Tea Party. 

I’m also not sure exactly what I thought would be involved with throwing the tea in the harbor, but there were three pieces of foam wrapped in canvas to look like crates attached to ropes. You picked the block up, threw it over, and then pulled it back up on the rope so the person behind you could do it. 

They picked three people to do it as part of the “ceremony” at the beginning when we got on the boat, and then whoever else wanted to could as we filed off the boat. Honestly, a lot of the kids didn’t even go for a turn because it wasn’t terribly exciting. 

From there we went into the “museum” where we weren’t allowed to take any pictures. It was really more 3-4 rooms with interactive video elements where they spent more time explaining the politics of it all and how the Sons of Liberty and the loyalists (and their families) were pitted against each other and how volatile everything was. 

There’s some neat technology (talking picture frames, advanced projections, etc) and then you stand in a theater at the end to watch a 15ish minute movie that’s a more historical reenactment of the Boston Tea Party and the start of the war. 

Parts of it were really well done and historically accurate, parts really dragged or felt cheesy, and so whether or not this is something you want to do is going to come down to the $$ and how much time you have. Plus what kind of experience you’re looking for. 

If you want a truly historical reenactment or interpretation, this isn’t it. If you want to be mildly entertained while learning about the concepts behind the revolution and what sparked the Boston Tea Party, you’ll like it. 

If you only have one (or maybe two or three) days in Boston, I don’t think I can say it’s a must do. 

Is this good for kids? 

Since it’s all very entertainment based and pretty interactive, it seems like it would be geared to kids, but I think it really depends on the age. 

The tour guides talk fast, they use 18th century jargon and speech patterns, and they’re talking about government/revolution/taxation so if your kid is 1) under 10ish and 2) not familiar with basic American Revolution events, principles, and leaders then it’s probably not going to be super enjoyable for them. 

It’s definitely an experience geared towards older kids and fun loving adults. Pretty much all of the little kids on our tour (I’d say under 7ish) ended up being carried and weren’t too into it. 

Is it only for Americans/super patriotic? 

Good question! I didn’t think about it much before I went because I like to learn about the history wherever I go, but there were quite a few non-Americans on our tour. They were all adults and they seemed to find it amusing (the whole tour uses a lot of humor) and enjoyable. 

About it being patriotic…that’s not exactly the word I would pick to describe it, but it is very pro revolution, obviously. The whole experience has more of a celebratory/emotional/chaotic energy than a historical reenactment and honestly, I think that’s a bit why it’s not 100% historically accurate. Viewed from a modern lens, I think it’s hard for a segment (maybe the majority??) of Americans/humans to “celebrate” some of this history, so even if it’s not necessarily altered or changed, it’s minimized and they focus on something else to keep it upbeat and celebratory. Like…”yay! We did that!”

Does this make any sense?? haha

Let me be clear…in the film at the end that shows an actual dramatic reenactment of the events, I think it’s pretty historically accurate (they show the Sons of Liberty dressing up like natives, etc.) but the rest of the tour feels a bit more cartoonish. 

ANYWAYS, so much for avoiding controversy! If it all sounds like fun, go! You’ll love it! If you’re already questioning if it’s worth your time/money, maybe skip. 

You can buy tickets in advance (definitely do that in the summer) here. 

Minute Man National Historical Park

If you have a car, you’re in the area for a bit longer and you’re committed to doing ALL the Revolutionary War things, you’ll definitely want to check out Minute Man National Historical Park. It’s just outside of Boston in Concord (yes, that Concord).