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Boston By Foot
Category: Hotels & Travel Tours Tours [Edit]
77 N Washington StBoston, MA 02114
Neighborhood: North End
(617) 367-2345
- Nearest Transit:
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N Washington St @ Thacher St (111, 89/93, 92, 93)
N Washington St @ Medford St (111, 426, 426/455, 428, 92, 93)
North Station - Green Line Outbound (Green Line)
15 reviews for Boston By Foot
15 reviews in English
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Review from Sarah Z.
6/7/2011
On my first trip to Boston my friend had purchased a walking tour from Boston by Foot on Bloomspot so that I could tour Boston while she worked. Sweet, isn't she? Anyway...
On a weekday afternoon I was late and lost, looking for the statue of Samuel Adams at Faneuil Hall. This is where the "Heart of the Freedom Trail," begins. I had pictured the tour would be walking around with a large group of tourists so by the time I had reached the statue, huffing and puffing, I was sad to see no group in sight. I thought for a second they must have left but one man stood alone, with a very small Boston By Foot sticker and it was the tour guide. I was his only tourist!
A one-on-one tour is great because it really forces you to pay attention (instead of letting your mind drift off or concentrating too hard on taking pictures); it is a much more personal experience built for optimal learning! Unfortunately it's also a little awkward. Along the route there were multiple times where I wished there was at least one more person with us.
Despite awkwardness, this was a great way to learn and tour the city! http://instagr.am/p/EM... -
Review from Claire W.
Boston, MA
5/5/2012 3 photos
My friend and I reserved a free pass for the BEACON HILL Boston by Foot tour through Boston Public Library. (The pass is good for free admission up to 4 people - $48 value.)
There were about 16-20 people in the Saturday afternoon tour group. BETH, our spirited tour guide, lead us through the streets of Beacon Hill. We met at the State House and learned about the architecture of the establishment and the statues surrounding. For the next 90 minutes, we walked along cobblestone and brick roads to learn about rich Bostonians building houses for their family members, passed by secret gardens and loitered in front of the last remaining mansion in Beacon Hill.
I would recommend booking a tour with Boston by Foot if you're visiting Boston for the first time or if you simply want to learn some fun facts about the city you live in. The Dark Side of Boston tour sounds interesting.
Anyhow, Beth was great and now I know what 'piano nobile' is. Do you? -
Review from Thao T.
San Francisco, CA
2/20/2008 7 photos
"Footloose on the Freedom Trail", an Independence Day tour, was an absolute experience, especially for letting loose vacation calories!
A description of the tour per their website [www.bostonbyfoot.org] clarifies:
Footloose on the Freedom Trail is a 3 hour walking tour of the entire Freedom Trail from the State House to the U.S.S. Constitution offered every Independence Day. The tour winds among Boston's parades and celebrations and includes the honoring of Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere at the Granary Burying Ground, and the reading of the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the Old State House.
It was an amazing day to be in Boston and I highly encourage the experience! -
Review from Josiah C.
Boston, MA
6/19/2010
I recently took a special tour called "Bostonians Behaving Badly" led by one of the volunteer docents. This tour featured all the riots and rebellions that have occurred over the last few centuries in Boston.
Our guide was very knowledgeable and provided an insight into the history of the city not offered by other tour groups. This particular tour, that ranged from food riots to tearing down whore houses, showed the wide range of the Boston By Foot guides and their ability to offer a more in depth experience than what you would get in a tourist trap.
If you like history and want to learn something substantive, I highly recommend one of the tours listed on http://www.bostonbyfoo.... I'm looking forward to next week when they will show us the dams on the Charles River and take us around the expressways and new bridges built during the Big Dig. -
Review from A M.
Waltham, MA
10/11/2011
I did the Freedom Trail tour last weekend and had such a great experience!!! My tour guide was incredibly knowledgable and took time to answer questions and even give fun facts along the way.
As a recent relocater to Boston, this was a great way to get a better grasp of the rich history this city has to offer. The volunteers all seem friendly and the price is very reasonable.
I look forward to participating in more Boston by Foot opportunities soon! -
Review from Kathy S.
10/11/2009
Ahm, NO!
We went on this tour last night...The "Dark Side Of Boston" tour..
Well...I'm now living on the "Dark Side" because of it. My life will never be the same.
I have never been on a worse tour in my life. I'm not sure if it was out tour guide or what..But, this was absolutely horrid.
We had 11 people in our tour and everyone was texting each other how bad it was. He actually even had his facts completely wrong another tourist in the group corrected him. You'd think if you were paying for a tour of Boston, you may want to have your facts correct!
We watched two other groups around us who were laughing and joking. I'm not sure what was going on with the other groups..but, I wanted in..Never again...sorry..Comment from Samantha N. of Boston By Foot 5/3/2010
We were so sorry and surprised to read about your experience… More » -
Review from Pam C.
Cambridge, MA
6/26/2010
I recently took a tour, "Heart of the Freedom Trail," on a Saturday afternoon. The guide was a volunteer--apparently this is the only all volunteer tour group in Boston--who obviously had a strong grasp of colonial Boston history, from the committees of correspondence that apparently met at Faneuil Hall, to the reason for the donkey in front of old city hall, to the old Scollay square neighborhood that became our present city hall. I was surprised to learn how different the early landscape of Boston was from the one we see today.
But I don't want to give it all away. If you love history and architecture, and you want to see the old buildings of Boston come to life, and if you have 90 free minutes some afternoon or weekend, this is a great tour to take. I'm inspired to learn more by taking some of their other tours. I'll be sure to let Yelp know how it goes. -
Review from Caitlin F.
San Francisco, CA
8/8/2011
I went on the Dark Side of Boston tour a few days ago, and while the information was really good, it would have been a lot more fun and interesting with a better tour guide. The woman who gave the tour was so quiet that I could barely hear her, and seemed really nervous. At one point she said that she "didn't want to yell,"; apparently this was her rationale for being barely audible. I was going to go on the Heart of the Freedom Trail tour with this organization as well, but I think I'll stick with another one I've found. I've seen them walking around, and they seem a lot more fun.
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Review from Richard S.
Boston, MA
4/7/2011
Dark Side was a great tour! The detail our guide commanded went beyond the run of the mill urban legends and brought the true stories to life. Recommended if you are looking for something different and we saw a lot of cool secret places in the North End area we would not have gotten to on out own.
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Review from Lisa T.
Sacramento, CA
9/11/2010
Authentic and informative way to see some of Boston's historical and beautiful neighborhoods. We took the Beacon Hill tour with Mary on a perfect evening, and she took us around the major attractions and small cool corners of the area. She showed us the State House, Boston Common, the exclusive and gorgeous homes of some of Boston's historical elite. It's a fairly easy walk and you will learn a lot about Beacon Hill. Boston by Foot is a volunteer organization and the guides are informative and personable. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanted to know more about Boston.
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Review from olivia s.
Boston, MA
12/19/2008
I am a volunteer docent for Boston by Foot and highly recommend it if (1) you are a local Bostonian looking for a cool volunteer opportunity or (2) you want to learn more about Boston history and architecture on a fun and informative walking tour. All tour guides are volunteers and we volunteer our time because we truly love to share our knowledge and meet new people. Hope to see you on a tour!
We also have a tour designed especially for kids called "Little Feet"
Join our meetup group for updates about special tours: http://www.meetup.com/...
Our website: http://www.bostonbyfoo...
Regular tour season is May - October, but we are looking into adding some off-season tours. Check out the meetup group for more info on this. -
Review from Nicole S.
Boston, MA
10/5/2011
BBF has a really wide arra of tours to choose from. All of the guides are volunteers, which seems to mean that they are in it because they really care about the material and are generally incredibly knowledgable.
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Review from Dorothy N.
Chicago, IL
9/7/2009
Whether you're a tourist or a native, Boston By Foot is a great way to get to know some of the history and architecture of Boston. With a great program of tours that include a literary, architecture, and "nerd-friendly" engineering tour, BBF has something for everyone. They are inexpensive, usually run about 1 1/2 long, and are really interesting. The docents are volunteers who put in a lot of time to research information on the visited sites, and so the tours are very informative.I went on their Labor Day special 5-hour tour (which was a bit too long for me), but I am definitely going to try out one of their regularly scheduled tours.
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Review from Dana S.
Burlington, MA
8/24/2010
went on the 5:30 pm tour that talks about the great molasses flood and other macabre things. My son loved it- lots of walking and getting to see the North End in its true light- TAKE THE TOUR if you have the option. even locals like us had fun.
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Review from s v.
Durham, NC
6/12/2010
walking tour - boston by foot, heart of the freedom trail
awesome that it's a non for profit. tour guide could have been a bit more energetic, but then again was a volunteer.
also she didn't know why boston was called beantown, but had only been there 7 years, not a native...
