Frommer's Boston [With Fold-Out Map]

This is a good book, especially for someone visiting Boston for the 1st time.

This is a very good guide book in its comprehensiveness, ease of use, helpful "star" rating system and special effort to make note of good family activities/locations. If you have kids, this is a great choice! However, because this book is written by one author, I don't find it equally strong in every category. But overall, it's very good and I recommend it!

Contents are comprehensive and informative, helping our (expanded) family to plan a visit to Boston. It'll be put to the "acid" test the week of July 4.

We used Frommer's in a recent train trip, and this was the first major city we visited on the trip. And it made me thankful that I purchased the editions for the other cities we later visited. I had visited Boston once before a decade and a half ago, but this time I had three children in tow. I wanted to make sure that we paced ourselves for the three days that we were there, and the book allowed me to do so. I was able to pick activities that the kids would like--including the Freedom Trail, a short 1-hour cruise to the USS Constitution, and Fenway Park. Frommer's has an excellent Freedom Trail section that you will want to keep your finger in as you walk along site by site. There were many excellent suggestions the book made about a number of things, including a short (positive) review about our hotel (the Midtown Hotel, which we were extremely pleased with in regards to location and price). Except for being wrong on some of the admission prices to some of the sites--just a buck or two--the book was fairly accurate in everything else we looked up, which I thought was pretty impressive. In addition, I recommend picking up an Entertainment book for your city--they're only $10 after the spring--as we used food and entertainment coupons in Boston that saved us more than $100. Two-fer-ones and excellent discounted fares made it more bearable to do a few extras, especially for us on a limited budget. Whether or not you've been to Boston before, I highly recommend Frommer's for getting around with the best possible information at your fingertips.

We went to Boston in April of 2008. It was a beautiful time to go. I know most people go to the Northeast in the fall for the leaves, but I had never been anywhere in the Northeast before, so we went in April. There are less people there than leaf time, from what I have read. The book helped us with all of our planning. My favorite part is the hours of operation listed for the attractions. That helps you plan ahead so you do not miss something because it is closed on Monday and you waited until Monday to go. I recommend this book, I used this publisher for our San Francisco trip too.