Relocating to Boston and Surrounding Areas: Everything You Need to Know Before You Move and After You Get There!

We bought this book prior to moving to Boston. We have never been to Boston and did not know a soul here when we moved. It has a good description of the neighborhoods and helped us pick a neighborhood to live in. It also having moving tips, which I wasn't interested in and things to do in Boston an surrounding areas. Also has a section on annual things/celebrations in Boston which is nice to know what to look for. Has a "What's Around Town" section on Museums, Galleries, parks, restaurants and things to do and even branches into the surrounding states. I think it is a well rounded book for someone who doesn't know the area at all. I would buy it again.

I am finding this book to be very helpful because it really focuses not only on Boston, but also on overall moving tips and timelines. Some people may not need this section at all if they are avid movers. I would have liked to see more detail in the surrounding neighborhoods. The "Outer Suburbs" were really generalized which was not helpful to me as I will be relocating to a western suburb of Boston. The publishing date is also 2002, so it does not include all of the latest antics with the Big Dig, etc. Still, I find it helpful overall.

[Those of you born and raised in Boston, feel free to just skip to the last two paragraphs] The book advertises itself as "everything you need to know before you move and after you get there!" That's quite ambitious. There can't be too many places more challenging to move to than Boston, the single most passive-aggressive city in the world. Everything about Boston is charming and quaint from a distance and hostile in the here and now. For example, you can use no logic or intuition to find your way around if you get lost. None of the normal rules apply. Streets veer off on such subtle and off angles, intersecting with each other three to five at a time in intersections with no known corresponding geometrical shape with which to describe them. Several streets have the same name, like Beacon, which starts and stops in several places having nothing to do with each other. The best illustration of this is the fact the Tremont intersects with itself. It's true, there is an intersection of Tremont and Tremont, as denoted by a couple demure little street signs that you will see if you already know they're there. You feel like you've slipped off the space-time continuum. You can drive for miles without seeing a street sign, unless a street has a commemorative sign, being named after a local politician you've never heard of. And the endless arrays of completely arbitrary one-way streets (why not just alternate?). Then you have the round-abouts. These traffic circles are actually kind of fun once you get how to do it, but they are not kind on newcomers. Nor are the other drivers, who drive worse than New Yorkers, worse than many urban third-world cities for that matter. But you've gotta love those beautiful, quaint cobblestone streets. Nothing like rolling your ankle on those pseudo-aged bricks while the MBTA bus driver races off feigning obliviousness. Which takes me to the citizens, those wonderful Mass masses. Once you get to know them, they are just like people anywhere, you can make great friends. But they'll let you sweat about two years trying to break the ice. If you smile and say Hi to a stranger on the street, you'll be greeted with suspicion at best (especially jarring if you come from the mid-west). And don't bother trying to tell someone from Boston that there are other places around the country that are also nice to live. And the accent. You gotta be kidding me. Dropping the R's is one thing, but when they start putting the R's on the end of words that end in vowels, then you know they are just messing with the rest of us, you have to be doing that on purpose (although it is fun after a while). Even the revolving doors are passive aggressive. They move automatically, but then stop suddenly and freeze, let you sweat a little bit, the voice, "Please!" the voice of an angry, middle-aged, jilted, life-long cigarette smoking, nickel-slot playing woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, "please! Please step forward.

An excellent book. In the tradition of Mr. Gaffin's reknown website Bostone Online, the book is enlightening for those of us from far off lands on the true culture and language of Boston. A true guide to bean town. Well recommended.