Exploring Boston and the coastline!
We visited Massachusetts during a 2 week roundtrip around the North East USA. We really enjoyed seeing both the city side and the coastal towns of Massachusetts.
This trip took place July 2021.
We visited the following locations – check it out!
Check out the whole vlog here:
Boston
Our time in Boston was short but super fun. We drove into Boston in the afternoon and went straight to Boston Common and parked in a garage right near there. We spent a while walking around the beautiful park, including stops like the Frog Park! Our kids loved that you could run into the shallow water fountain – it was huge!
We also walked around the pond to see the bench from Good Will Hunting, saw the outside of the bar from Cheers, and more.
After that, we headed to an evening game at Fenway Park! This was a bucket list activity for us and we were so excited! It’s really amazing to see such a historic stadium. Even if not a huge baseball fan (which we are not), it’s really great experience to be in this park. One thing we noticed was how small the seats were – both skinny and for shorter people! 🙂
We got dinner at a place right near the park called Tasty Burger – the kids loved it, then walked over to the park. We got there early so we could walk around a bit and explore the stores and the grounds.
Then, we made it to the game. The atmosphere was amazing – it was so crowded! It was a great game, and even better, there was an in the park homerun. Literally insane! 🙂
While our time was short – we had a great time. There is so much more in Boston to explore, but that just means we need to come back!
Rockport (lodging: Rockport Inn & Suites)
Wow – Rockport is such a cute town. We had 3 wonderful nights here where we used it as a home base to explore the surrounding coastal area.
We stayed at the beautiful Rockport Inn & Suites. It was in a great location, very close to the town and had a nice pool, good breakfast and cute chairs around the hotel where you can relax.
One of the best things you can do in Rockport is visit Bearskin Neck. It’s a really charming part of town with restaurants and amazing views. You could walk out onto the jetty to have great views back to the harbor and boats. We also enjoyed some of the restaurants in the area, including The Fish Shack which had great food and nice views.
Gloucester (Whale Watching)
One of the main things we wanted to do in this area was go whale watching – something we’d never done before. The tour was great and I was like paparazzi taking a million pictures. I’d actually love to go back again and just enjoy it without the pictures.
We used a company called 7 Seas Whale Watch and we’d highly recommend. If you want the tour we took, check it out: Whale Watching Tour. The tour left around 8.30am and was about 3 hours long. They took us out into the ocean and very quickly found some whales. It was really interesting listening to the researchers that work on the boat because they knew so much about the whales in the area. We got to meet one whale called Spoon who was swimming all over. We got to see quite a few whales, including 2 that were taking a little nap where you could see the top of their huge bodies at the top of the water. We also got to see a ‘rainblow’ which is when the whales spout water and you can see a rainbow in it. One reco – there were a LOT of people feeling nauseous or getting sick. Take some Dramamine 🙂 It was a really special activity if you’re in the area, or anywhere in the northeast and get a chance to do whale watching.
After our tour we walked along the harbor to see the Fisherman’s Memorial and then grabbed some pizza and insane cannolis from Virgilio’s Bakery. Gloucester is a cute little town!
There was also a great lighthouse in the area with a huge jetty you can walk out on, called the Dog Bar Lighthouse.
Salem and Beverly
On our other days based in Rockport, we visited a few of the other towns in the area.
In Salem, we wandered around to see some of the historic sites, like the Old Town Hall and the cemetery. We thought of doing a ghost tour but thought our kids may not love it. It was a little eerie to walk through a town so famous for burning women and claiming they were witches. 😐
We got dinner at the Boston Burger Co which had great burgers but also, the most insane milkshakes. I didn’t take a picture – so you’ve got to check out the vlog.
On the way back to our home base, we visited the town of Beverly, and the David S. Lynch park, which is a beautiful park right along the coast. Also, of course found some basketball courts around the area.
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