Vaughan to Boston: the New England week by chauffeured car

Boston, and why the car

Boston is further than New York and Vaughan families go for different reasons: the history — the Freedom Trail's two and a half miles of red brick past the Old State House, Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church; the university visit, when a seventeen-year-old's shortlist has Harvard, MIT, Boston University or Northeastern on it and the family drives down for the tours; a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, the oldest ballpark in the major leagues; and the New England beyond — Cape Cod, Newport, Portland and the White Mountains — for which Boston is the gateway. A chauffeured Sprinter carries the family the nine hundred kilometres with the tables and the bay, and stays for the New England week or comes home. The Meet Boston site has the city; the border guide has the bridge.

The route, and the split

The Peace Bridge and the Thruway to Albany as for New York, then I-90 continues east as the Massachusetts Turnpike through the Berkshires — the hills at Lee and Stockbridge, the descent to Springfield and Worcester — into Boston's Back Bay by the Pike's end. It is eleven hours by the estimate and eleven to twelve in practice with the border and stops, which is why most families split it: a night in Saratoga Springs (seven and a half hours from Vaughan) or Albany, then three hours to Boston in the morning; or the northern route through Montreal and Vermont — Autoroute 15, I-89 through Burlington and the Green Mountains, I-93 into Boston — which is longer but passes Burlington and Stowe for a family that wants Vermont on the way. The travel desk holds the split's room.

The Freedom Trail and the North End

The trail's red line begins at Boston Common and runs past the State House, the Granary Burying Ground where Samuel Adams and Paul Revere lie, the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House and the site of the Boston Massacre, Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market's food hall, Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church in the North End, then across the Charlestown bridge to the USS Constitution and Bunker Hill. A family walks it in a morning with the National Park Service's rangers at the stops, eats in the North End's Italian restaurants at noon — Vaughan's Italian families feel at home on Hanover Street — and the Sprinter is at the Charlestown end for the pickup. The National Park Service's Boston page has the trail's stops and the Constitution's hours.

Fenway, the museums and the harbour

Fenway Park's tour runs daily and the Red Sox play from April to September; the Museum of Science on the Charles and the New England Aquarium on the harbour are the children's afternoons; the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner are the parents'; the Duck Tour — a Second World War amphibious vehicle that drives the streets and then floats on the Charles — is the family's hour that the children remember; the harbour islands' ferries are the summer afternoon. The Luxury SUV or Sprinter carries the family between them on a daily-hire day, or the T carries them and the vehicle is released.

Harvard, MIT and the university visit

Cambridge across the river is the reason a Vaughan family with a Grade 12 student books Boston: Harvard Yard's information session and the student-led tour, MIT's tour from the Infinite Corridor, Boston University's along Commonwealth Avenue, Northeastern's and Tufts's — two or three in two days, booked through the universities' admissions pages weeks ahead, with the Sprinter dropping at each and the family walking Harvard Square between. The Harvard admissions visit page has the sessions; a chauffeured family does three campuses in a day that a family in its own car does two of, because Cambridge's parking is the reason.

The week, in shape

Day one the drive to Saratoga; day two Boston by noon, the Freedom Trail's first half and the North End; day three the trail's Charlestown end, the Constitution, the aquarium and a Duck Tour; day four Cambridge — the campuses or the museums — and Fenway; day five Cape Cod or the drive home, with the split at Albany again or the eleven hours straight. Four or five nights, the Sprinter as a return with a daily-hire day for Cambridge, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

Eleven hours at the wheel across two states and the Berkshires; the Massachusetts Turnpike's tolls and the Big Dig's tunnels, which the chauffeur knows; Boston's parking, which is famous; Cambridge's, which is worse; and the flight — Boston is a ninety-minute flight from Pearson, and the site is plain that a couple flies; it is the family of five with the New England week ahead of it, or the group of eight for a Red Sox weekend, for whom the Sprinter is the vehicle.

Seasons

October for New England's colour on the Pike's Berkshire stretch and Cambridge's yards; April for the Marathon and the Red Sox's opening week; summer for the harbour, the Cape and the Duck Tour; the Patriots' Day weekend for the reenactments at Lexington and Concord, an hour west; December for the Common's lights and a Nutcracker at the Opera House.

Pairing it

Boston pairs with Cape Cod, Newport and Portland, Maine as the New England week; with Saratoga or Lake George as the drive's split; and with New York as the two-city trip, four hours apart down I-95.

The university visit, in order

A family from Thornhill with a Grade 12 daughter and a shortlist: Saratoga's night on the way; Boston by 11 the next day and the Boston University tour at one along Commonwealth Avenue; day three at nine the Harvard information session in the Smith Campus Center and the student-led tour of the Yard, lunch in Harvard Square, MIT's tour at two from Lobby 7 and the Infinite Corridor, the Sprinter between and the parents' coffee in Kendall Square; day four Northeastern at ten and Tufts at two; the evening's Freedom Trail for the younger brother, who came for the Duck Tour. Three campuses in a day is the chauffeured family's advantage — Cambridge's parking is the reason a family car does two — and the admissions pages' booking calendars open weeks ahead. The Harvard admissions visit page is one; MIT's, BU's, Northeastern's and Tufts's are the others, and the travel desk puts the tour times in the plan.

The northern route, through Vermont

A family that wants the Green Mountains takes the northern road: the 401 to Montreal in five and a half hours, Autoroute 15 to the Champlain–Lacolle crossing — the border guide has it — I-89 through Burlington and the mountains past Stowe's exit, the White River Junction and I-93 into Boston: longer by two hours, split at Burlington, and in October the most beautiful road on this site. The southern route by the Pike is the fast one; the Sprinter does either.

The New England week, from Boston

Boston is the gateway and the family that has driven nine hundred kilometres adds the region: Cape Cod ninety minutes south for the beaches and Provincetown's ferry; Newport ninety minutes for the mansions and the Cliff Walk; Portland, Maine two hours north for the lobster and the lighthouses; the White Mountains two and a half for the Kancamagus and the cog railway. Two or three of them added to the Boston nights make the ten-day New England week that the daily hire is built for.

Costs, plainly

The Boston return is one number in the booking engine, the daily hire for the New England week another; against them are five Pearson–Logan fares, Logan's transfers and, for the family that drove itself, the Pike's tolls, Boston's garages and eleven hours at the wheel each way. A couple flies and this site says so; a family with a university visit and a Cape week behind it drives, and two families sharing the Sprinter drive for what one family's flights cost.

Lexington, Concord and the North Shore

An hour west of Boston are Lexington's green, where the first shots were fired in April 1775, Concord's North Bridge and the Minute Man National Historical Park's road between them, with Walden Pond and the Alcott and Emerson houses in Concord — a family's daily-hire morning with the Sprinter and a Grade 10 student's American Revolution made real; an hour north are Salem's witch museums and October crowds, Gloucester's harbour and Rockport's Bearskin Neck, the North Shore afternoon a family adds when the Cape is not the plan. The Freedom Trail Foundation's site has the city's trail; the National Park Service's Minute Man page has the road west.

Fenway, for the baseball family

A Vaughan family whose son plays travel ball books Boston around a Red Sox home stand: the ballpark tour at ten with the Green Monster seats and the press box, the game at 7:10 from the grandstand behind first base, Yawkey Way's — now Jersey Street's — sausages before, and the Kenmore Square walk to the hotel after; the Blue Jays' visits to Fenway in May and July are the weekends Vaughan families pick, and the Sprinter's return is timed for the Monday. The Red Sox site has the schedule and the tour's hours.

Costs, once more, for the group

A Red Sox weekend for eight from Woodbridge is two nights of daily hire split eight ways — the Sprinter on Friday morning, Saturday's game, Sunday's brunch in the North End and the Monday drive home — against eight Pearson–Logan fares and two airport vans; the booking engine shows the number and the hotel's block of rooms is the travel desk's job.

The Duck Tour, for the record

The amphibious vehicle leaves from the Prudential Center, the Museum of Science or the aquarium, drives the Back Bay and Beacon Hill with a conDUCKtor's commentary, and rolls down a ramp into the Charles for twenty minutes on the water with the skyline and the sailing dinghies — eighty minutes, booked a day ahead in summer on the Boston Duck Tours site, and the children steer the boat.

Booking it

Book from your Vaughan address as a return, a daily hire for the week or a one-way with the flight home from Logan and the Pearson pickup booked; tell us the split, the campuses, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the border, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Boston trip