If you’ve been following along on here or on Instagram you know that the airports I frequent the most are PHL in Philadelphia and BOS in Boston. They are both American hubs and great for domestic and international travel. Lately I’ve been using BOS as my gateway to Maine as it’s easy to catch the train and hop right up to Wells.

With the end of my school quarter landing in mid-march my family and I decided that it would be fun to meet up in the “middle” (New Haven, CT is actually the middle but Boston worked out better). Since our family trip to Paris pre-pandemic we have not really traveled as a family. My mother and I researched restaurants, bars, museums and historic sites before making a tentative itinerary.

Coming from Maine, Boston always felt like a big city but after living in Philadelphia I am aware that Boston is truly a mid-sized city that I’m sure New Yorkers would call small. I flew in early Friday morning and enjoyed a stunning sunny day sitting in the Boston Garden’s reading and waiting for my family. While enjoying the sun and older man sat down next to me, we got chatting and it turns out he was also born in Maine, in the same hospital that I was born at. Even when New England feels big, I am reminded that is also a small community.

On Friday afternoon we walked a large portion of the Freedom Trail and visited the Make Way for Ducklings Statue. The ducklings were all dressed up in support of Ukraine. The day was unseasonably warm which was a lovely tease of spring before the rain on Saturday.

We started off Saturday with a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum. If you are unfamiliar the Garden Museum is where the largest art heist in recent history took place. In March of 1990, two thieves dressed as Boston Police officers entered the museum in the middle of the night. They tied up the two guards with duct tape and put them in the basement. The thieves took 13 pieces of art totaling over 500 million dollars. In total the thieves were in the museum for 81 minutes. If you’re interested in learning more about the art heist, Netflix has a documentary called “This is a Robbery” that I highly recommend.

My favorite part of the museum was the indoor garden in the middle of the ‘palace’. I struggle to keep my handful of houseplants alive, I can’t image the responsibility of keeping a whole garden of houseplants thriving. Unfortunately walking through the garden is off limits to visitor as all I wanted to do was sit in the garden with a good book or maybe take a nap!

Because Isabella Steward Gardner left such strict instructions for how the museum is to be kept and run when the paintings were stolen the board of directors decided to hang the empty frames back up where the paintings once hung.

Of course when in Boston you have to get cannoli. We asked our waiter as the Oyster House which cannoli shop he liked best and his vote was for Modern, and I have to agree! We did try both Modern and Mike’s but Modern was my favorite because of the shell to filling ratio. Mike’s Cannolis were larger but they didn’t have the same crunch as the ones at Modern.

After getting our first cannoli of the day (we had to get one after dinner too!) we walked by Old North Church and took a quick tour of the Paul Revere House. Although the weather wasn’t perfect we made the best of the drizzly day in Boston.

I know most people head somewhere warm for spring break but beating the heat and the crowds of Boston in the summer was totally worth it and made for the best start to my March break.

I’m headed back to Philadelphia today, to start a new quarter with new classes. The weather is warming up and the flowers are starting to bloom, soon enough summer will be upon us. I have exciting travel plans for June that I will be sharing more about in the coming weeks and I’m hoping to sneak in a weekend or two of travel before then. Let me know where you’re headed in the next couple months!

Happy Travels & Stay Safe!