Category Archives: fall activity

Family Friendly Boston – What to Know About Trick or Treating on Beacon Hill

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If you live in Boston with young children one Halloween must do it trick or treating on Beacon Hill.  Beacon Hill is a pretty amazing place to begin with but on Halloween night they block vehicle traffic on the streets and then let the party begin.  The streets and ally ways are decorated, tons of residents dress up or sit on their porches handing out candy and masses of children dressed in costumes flock the streets.

Things to Note: 

1) Start Time
Around 5 PM, when the sun is just starting to set.  If you get here too much earlier than this you can expect the residents to be unprepared to greet you and slightly annoyed that you’re started the festivities so early.

2) Getting There
Take the “T”.  The closest parking is probably at Boston Commons but on Halloween night there is no guarantee you’ll find a spot.  Both the “Park Street” and the “MGH” stops make for a very short walk to Beacon Hill.

3) Stroller Friendliness 
If you can avoid a stroller I would suggest it.  The Beacon Hill streets are really steep, many are paved in brick and hauling a stroller up and down across that bumpiness while navigating the crowds and keeping up with over excited trick or treaters can get a little crazy.  We brought a stroller the first year and I regretted every second of it, even with a 1.5 year old.

4) Bathrooms
Eek! Why is the potty such an issue with children?  Better go before you get started and be prepared to do a fair amount of out of the way walking to find a business that will let you use theirs.  There are a few restaurants lining Charles Street that you might be able to beg a bathroom stop from but we ended up walking clear to Massachusetts General Hospital when we needed to use the restroom…

5) Be Prepared for Lots of People and Lots of Fun
Many of the residents dress up, lots of houses are decorated and the streets are flooded with trick or treaters.  We go early and leave early, as our children are young, but at 6:30 it seems like the party is just getting started.  We loved seeing all the kids and all the fantastic costumes and we had so much fun enjoying the celebration with so many people.

Summary and Rating ★★★★★

Five Stars.  The trick or treating experience doesn’t get any better than Beacon Hill in my opinion. Seeing such beautiful homes and being able to enjoy the festivities with so many people was amazing.  I loved seeing all the cute kids in their costumes and the residents were so nice and fun, happily greeting the children, many of them dressed up themselves.  If you live in Boston this is on experience you’ve really got to try.

Have you been here before?  If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below. 

Beacon Hill Trick or Treating
Beacon Hill
Boston, MA 02114

Hours: 5PM-8PM October 31st

Touring Boston – What to Know About Attending a Boston Ghost & Graveyard Tour

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One of the first things we did when we moved here was attend a ghost and graveyard tour through Boston.  The tour was a blast, the stories were really fun, and there was something incredibly exciting about walking through locked graveyards late at night.  Unfortunately for us half way through our tour it started pouring rain… not just a trickle, but an honest Boston down pour which made the last part of the tour a bit difficult both to hear and enjoy.

Things to Note:

1) Price
There are two different companies that do Ghost and Graveyard tours in downtown Boston, one is a walking tour that is $18/adult and $13/youth (under 16) you can find out more about them at Haunted Boston Ghost Tours.  

The one that we went on was the Ghost and Graveyard Tour which had spookily dressed up actress/actors as guides and was partly walking tour partly a trolley ride as we went to different, further spaced out graveyards.  Those tickets ran $36/adult and $23/Children (ages 6-12), those are the online ticket prices, I think they are a bit more if you buy them at the box office.

2) Child Friendliness
This tour is certainly geared toward adults as many of the stories are dark and end with death.  Children as young as 6 are allowed, but I wouldn’t suggest bringing anyone that young…

3) Walk-ability
There is a far amount of walking involved, even with the trolley tour.  We took the trolley to the entrance of the first couple graveyards, but toward the end we needed to walk a couple of blocks between grave yards.  In hind sight it might not have been that far of a walk, but the rain was coming down in sheets the night of our tour, so it felt fairly long…

Okay, I just double checked on the website, there are two different 20 minute walking portions.  These are stop and go as you’ll pause to hear the history of the areas your walking past, but you will be walking.

4) The Tour
The tour itself is 90 minutes.  You’ll be riding some of the time on trolley carts decorated in Halloween style and your tour guides switch off at different portions of the tour.  The tours start at 8PM and runs rain or shine (I guess at night they run rain or not rain, in our case it was heavy rain).  You’ll be walking through locked graveyard by candle light and hear all sorts of interesting, true, and spooky stories about Boston’s past.

5) Getting There
The tours start near Boston Harbor and through there are parking garages in the area I would highly suggest taking the “T” to get there.  The “Aquarium” stop is a thirty second walk form the tour location and taking the “T” saves you both the hassle and expense of parking down town.

Summary and Rating ★★★★☆

Four Stars.  We loved the tour.  We loved the stories and it was nice to be able to get on and off the trolley so that we could cover more ground in a short period of time.  I think the tour is quite expensive (we were able to get discounted tickets through my husbands school) and having half our tour more or less washed out by the rain was lame.  The tour guides were a blast and this was a really fun way to learn more about Boston’s history, especially if you like seeing the dark side of things.  (If you’re not as into the dark side you should check out the walking historical tours which happen during day light hours, are also lead by a dressed up actor/actress, and are also amazing).

Have you been here before?  If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below. 

Boston Ghost & Graveyard Tours
Atlantic Ave
Boston, MA 02110

Phone: 866.754.9136
Website: http://www.ghostsandgravestones.com/boston/
Hours: Tours start at 8PM

Family Friendly Boston – What to Know About Attending the Annual Frog Pond Pumpkin Float with Kids

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Each year the Frog Pond in Boston Common has a Halloween festival a few weeks before Halloween where you can bring a small carved pumpkin and they will put a light in it and float it on the frog pond.  Hundreds of people show up to this event and it’s pretty magical to see all the pumpkins glowing on the pond, and even more fun when you can point out yours adding to the light.

We had the opportunity to go last year and we loved it.  It was super easy to get to, we could wonder around wherever our son wanted to go and we had a blast kicking off the Halloween season with such a fun festival.

Things to Note:

1) Bring a Carved Pumpkin
Your pumpkin should be smallish, they recommend 8″ pumpkins and it’s a lot more fun to have a carved pumpkin because you can see it when it’s out on the water (ours was a bit last minute and it was painted).  They will provide the light for you and it’s really fun to see all the pumpkins together lighting up the water. (When the festival is over all the pumpkins are donated to a compost company.)

2) Snacks
There are bunch of booths set up circling the pond giving out free stuff or having activities for children.  We walked away with some granola bar samples, cheese, fruit rolls, flavored water and more.

3) Crafts & Fun
There are also a bunch of crafts set up around the Frog Pond.  We made paper bag luminaries (again the lights were provided for us) and got to see our bag set up around the Frog Pond.   There were also magic tricks and scary stories being told at different places.

4) Parade
Children are encouraged to dress up and midway through the night they will be instructed to line up, music will start playing and they can march around the Frog Pond.  (Also, this is about the time that free glow sticks were handed out to all the children).

5) Crowds and Strollers
There were tons of people here and I was so glad that we didn’t bring our stroller.  There were a few people that had them and watching them trying to make their way through the thick masses of people looked super stressful.  If you have children that can walk this is one of the instances where I would suggest leaving the stroller behind, it’s a super short walk from the “T” and the stroller is likely going to cause more stress than it’s going to absolve.

6) Getting There &/or Parking
I would highly suggest taking the “T” to get here as the “Park Street” stop from both the red and green lines drop off literally at the park, giving you a thirty second walk to the pond.  If you must drive there is a parking garage with a limited amount of parking at Boston Common as well.

Summary & Rating ★★★☆☆

Three stars.  We had a lot of fun going and being able to add our pumpkin to the other pumpkins floating on the water, however the crows were crazy!  Trying to get around the pond to see the different vendors took some fancy footwork and if you want to float your pumpkin your best bet is to get there when it starts because toward the middle/end of the event the line to hand off pumpkins was quite long.  We enjoyed going, and I’m glad we tried it at least once but there are so many fun things going on around the city at this time of year that I think we’ll check out some new, less overwhelming, options next time around.

Have you been here before?  If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below. 

Frog Pond Pumpkin Float
Frog Pond
Boston, MA 02108

Phone: 617.635.2120
Website: http://bostonfrogpond.com/2015/03/pumpkin-festival/

Touring Boston – What to Know About Visiting Salem During October

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Salem is a fantastic place, and if you’re planning a visit there I would highly suggest going in the month of October because that’s when the town really comes to life, though it has fun stuff going on all year, you can find out more at http://salemweb.com/guide/tosee.php.  It’s got all sorts of scary history with the Salem Witch Trials and they also claim their are a number of haunted houses there, not to mention plenty of Halloween movies were filmed in the little town, perhaps mostly notably Hocus Pocus and Bewitched.

We went the second week of October and started out by walking the town and checking out the vendors.  There were about 100 Tarot Card readers, and though I’ve never had a reading and don’t know that I believe in them I was tempted to get one just to see what it was and because if I were ever to get one it seems like Salem would be the right place for it.  In the end it was $30 for a 15 minute reading and I realized I am too cheap to pay for something I think is more hokey than anything… I would rather have a new pair of shoes, but the cards look cool.

Already there were quite a few people in the town dressed up for Halloween and a lot of related events going on such as dance parties, Halloween vendors, haunted tours and the like.  We visited the memorial for those accused and sentenced during the Salem Witch Trials and visited more shops while we waited for our evening haunted tour.

At 8 we met up with our tour guide/group and were lead through the streets of Salem and told about the ghost stories and strange occurrences that have a happened there.  The Witch House that is right next to the monument had really creepy murder stories and apparently is the most haunted place in Salem. People claim to see lights in the attic or catch glimpses of people in the windows and such, after hearing all that we were happy to move on. *Note, if your going with kids you might not want to attend a haunted tour since a lot of stories were really dark.

Things to Note

1) If you want to visit in October go early in the month
If you’re going to go to Salem during the month of October and you don’t want to get clobbered by crowds go in the first few weeks of the month, the closer the date get to Halloween the more crazy and packed Halloween town gets.

2) Limited Parking
If you plan on going in October you should also know that parking will be limited.  Another fun option is to take the commuter rail there saving you the headache of parking.  

3) Day Trips
If you want to go for day trip there are quite a few museums you can visit and there is also a trolley ride that will take you around the town and give you a tour of the interesting places, which can be nice if your totting along tots.

4) Evening Tours Will Be Packed!
If you’re planning on going on an evening/haunted tour during the month of October things are going to be crowded.  We were in a tour group that had probably around 40 other people in it, which meant that some times it was difficult to hear our tour guide.  Also there were a whole bunch of other tour companies doing tours at the same time, so we often had to wait a few minutes for previous tour groups to move on before we could visit certain sights.  Finally, I would not recommend attending the evening tours with children.  We brought our then 9 month old son, and it was fine to carry him around, but the stories they tell are not child friendly and you may want to avoid the potential nightmares/scares I assume younger children would walk away with.

Summary & Stars ★★★★☆

Four stars.  We had a really fun time visiting it, my husband loved it and wants to make it yearly tradition though I think as our children get older we would plan more of day visit to see the decoration and less of a visit to see the more “scary” things.  If you want to go during the month of October consider going during the first few weeks to avoid massive crowds.  The town is quaint and nice to walk around on and there are a lot of museums to visit during the day.  Evening tours during the month of October are really crowded and busy and not child friendly.  Consider taking the commuter rail to avoid the hassle of parking.

Have you been here before?  If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below. 

Salem Witch House (Pretty much the Center of all the things going on in Salem)
310 1/2 Essex Street
Salem, Massachusetts

Phone:  978.744.8815
Website: http://www.salem.org/

Touring Boston – What to Know About Apple Picking at Russell Orchards

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Let me start by saying we love the Boston tradition of Pick Your Own Fruit.  We’ve loved picking apples each fall and we have loved getting to pick a few different kinds of berries this summer.

Over the weekend my husband and I decided that we really wanted to go apple picking this year and since I had a baby due in less than a month we decided that sooner would be better.  We got everything ready in the morning and packed into the car but when I pulled up the address to Tougas Orchard (my personal favorite) we found out they were closed for the day so we decided to try out Russell Orchard since we had seen flyers around campus for an outing the rest of the school was planning there.

The drive to Russell Orchard was beautiful and the parking lot didn’t seem to busy as we pulled in,

which was what we expected going on a weekday rather than a weekend.  As I mentioned I was less than a month away from my pregnancy due date so after a long car drive I really needed to use the bathroom.  Unfortunately my very first experience with Russell Orchard was with a row of very poorly maintained port-a-potties.  Ugh.  Being unbalanced and pregnant the last thing I wanted to do was squish my roundness into the stinky cesspit.  Toilet paper and urine was everywhere, there was no clean toilet paper to be found, the toilets were super full and looking at their little service dates marked on the inside of each port-a-potty it has been weeks since they had been serviced.  Using them myself and then taking my two year old to use them was absolutely revolting, and I’m sad to say it but that initial experience may have tainted the rest of my view of Russell Orchard.

Anyway, moving on to the Orchard Summary.

1. Bathrooms
This place has been around over a 100 years (or so they claim) and they still only have a line of port a potties for bathrooms.  Gross.

2. Pricing
The price for the apples was quite low compared to some of other orchards.  You paid an admission fee $3/person and that would later be credited toward your fruit.  Apples were $1.75 a lb.

3. The Orchard
I felt like we really could have used a little more help and direction when it came to this part.  After we paid our fee and were given a bag to put our apples in we were simply sent on our way and told not to get on the tractor tailor because that was only for kids on field trips.  Great.  … but we didn’t know what to do or where to go, there were no maps and no further instructions given.  We ended up wandering down the long main road looking for any kind of signage that suggested apples ready for picking.

It was a fairly long walk and I wish we would have brought a stroller, since my toddler is pretty big and a pain to carry, but we didn’t know how far away the apples would actually be.  However the trail was fairly rough so I don’t know that a stroller that wasn’t a jogger would have done much good.

Eventually we found the apples and they had a bunch of different ones clustered together.  Each row being a different type of apples so you could get a good variety without additional walking. There were apples everywhere, mostly all over the ground, which was kind of sad, and I suspected it was because they didn’t have any people there giving directions or telling you to be careful what you picked because anything you pick should go in your bag like many of the other orchards do.

Also we went the last week of September, and I don’t know if it was the time of year or the location or something else all together, but the flies and mosquitoes were out in swarms. We all came home with multiple bug bites.

4. Other Fruit
I was pretty excited that this orchard also had raspberries that were still available to pick so after we got our fill of apples we again headed to the main desk to try to get some direction to where we could find the berries and again we were pointed in a vague direction back into the orchard.  Still poor signage and no maps.

However when we did find the berries they were great.  Tasty, delicious, ripe, and they cost a fair amount less to pick than they do at the grocery store… which does not seem to be the case for most of my apple picking experiences.

5. Other Features
They have a few animals enclosed in a fence, mostly chickens and geese and a sign warning that they are not tame and to be careful around them.  There was no playground that I could see and only handful of benches.  The general store was nice and they had some really tasty ice cream there, but other than that there wasn’t much that stood out to me.

Summary & Stars:

★★☆☆☆

Two stars. Gross bathrooms killed this place for me, and having that added to a complete lack of direction and instruction left me pretty disappointed.  I feel like there are so many great orchards in New England that I would not waste my time returning to this one.

Have you been here before?  If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below. 

Address:

Russell Orchards
143 Argilla Rd.
Ipswich, MA  

Phone: 978-356-5366
Website: http://www.russellorchards.com/