This weekend Kristin, my sister Kathy and I did the Walking City Trail, a 28 mile hike through Boston. I first heard of this trail last year when several family members and friends sent me a link to bostontrails.org. The hike took us through several of the 23 neighborhoods of Boston, starting in the south in Mattapan and ending with Charlestown in the north. While it is primarily a walk that connects the many greenways of Boston - a.k.a. The Emerald Necklace - there are several sections that require going through neighborhoods to get to a trail.

The Emerald Necklace consists of 1,100 acres of parks and waterways in Boston and Brookline, which were created / connected via a design by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 19th century. This includes some of the best known greenways - such as the Boston Common, Public Garden and Arnold Arboretum - as well as many lesser known ones. The name comes from the fact the parks loosely form a chain that appears to hang like a green necklace from the peninsula of Boston.

The three of us are veteran long walkers. In September 2021 we did the Thoreau Walk, a 28 mile beach hike on the Cape Cod National Seashore. That hike was inspired by my reading Henry David Thoreau’s Cape Cod, which documents his 1850s walk on the Cape. This Boston walk was inspired by a much more practical purpose: my sister is training for a 500 mile Camino Way walk through France and Spain this May.

Below is the log of my journey for anyone else preparing to make this trek:

Our Preparation

While you certainly could do this entire walk in a single day, we chose to break it into two days, each covering about 14 miles. The bostontrails.org site breaks the journey into four separate walks, each documented in detail with PDF maps, step by step instructions, and AllTrails maps. Here are the maps:

  • Section 1 - Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roslindale
  • Section 2 - Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury
  • Section 3 - Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, Fenway-Kenmore, Back Bay
  • Section 4 - Back Bay, Chinatown, Seaport, Downtown, North End, Charlestown

While you don’t have to use the AllTrails app, it really does help since the instructions are very detailed. It was also nice to get reminded when I accidentally took a run turn - such as when we decided to leave the Boston Common to go into Bakey for some chocolate babka. If you can’t justify the $35 annual subscription, you can either use the limited free version or give the seven day free trial a spin. I went with the free trial, which while I liked, I still canceled at the end of the walk since I was unlikely to use again this year.



The Photo Album

Here are some photos I took on the walk:

Day 1 of Walking City Trail: Mattapan (~1 mile)

We started the morning with an Uber to Capen Street Station, which is a trolley stop in Milton, a town just south of the Boston city limits. We took a dirt path through woods to the Harvest River Bridge, a pedestrian crossing over the Neponset River. The bridge took us from Milton into our first Boston neighborhood: Mattapan. Mattapan means “a place to sit” in Algonquin.

Most people know the Charles and Mystic Rivers, but forget there is another equally important waterway in Boston’s history: the Neponset River. The river was named for the Neponsetts, a Native tribe of the Massachusett people. Neponset means: “there, where there is the crossing.” The Native Americans hunted, fished, shell fished and quarried this land for over 10,000 years, occupying it sometime after the retreat of the last Ice Age glaciers.

The Neponset River was a major means of transportation for the Native Americans. Just prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620, a series of epidemics decimated the Native population, severely weakening the power of local tribes. This fundamentally shifted the balance of power in New England, allowing the English to settle on Native lands. The first English settlement in Neponset occurred in 1630 during the Great Puritan Migration, a two decade-long event that would bring over 20,000 settlers to New England. Mattapan was then a part of Dorchester, which would become a collection of English farms, villages and country estates outside of Boston. By 1633, much of the land formerly owned by the Native Americans had been sold to English settlers, who leveraged the river for industry, including the country’s first water-powered grist mill, gunpowder mill, and paper mill.

Our walk in this neighborhood took us through the woods on the Lower Neponset River Trail to Mattapan Square, and then into the neighborhood of Hyde Park. While we spent most of our time in the woods, we also saw a few single-family houses, New England “Triple Deckers”, apartment buildings, and shops that make up this neighborhood.

Day 1 of Walking City Trail: Hyde Park (~6 miles)

After leaving the busy Mattapan Square, we entered our second Boston neighborhood: Hyde Park. Our walk started on the Edgewater Greenway, which brought us back along the Neponset River. From here we turned into a neighborhood, walking along streets until we reached Sherrin Woods, then back through streets to Stony Brook Reservation.

Hyde Park was created in 1868 from sparsely populated forests and farms in the towns of Dorchester, Dedham and Milton. Like all the neighborhoods of Boston, it was first settled in the 1630s as a result of the Great Puritan Migration. England at the start of the 17th century was a constitutional monarchy led by a king who was also the head of the Church of England. The king’s strict control over religion led to dissenting groups such as the Puritans. The Puritans were a religious sect that felt the Church of England was too closely associated with Catholicism. In 1620, separatist Puritans known as the Pilgrims, set sail for the New World and landed in Plymouth. They would be followed by successive waves of Puritans - over 20,000 in the next two decades - who would found towns all across New England, including the area that today is called Hyde Park.

This is a diverse neighborhood with a rich history. It is also the childhood home of our former governor, Deval Patrick. Some of the important landmarks in the neighborhood include the George Wright Golf Course, one of best public courses in the US; and the Stony Brook and Neponset River Reservations, both great open greenways.

Day 1 of Walking City Trail: Roslindale (~2 miles)

After exiting the Stony Brook Reservation, we left Hyde Park and entered our third neighborhood: Roslindale. We did mostly street walking here, passing one and two family houses, a gated community, a shopping plaza, a community garden, and of course: Dunkin Donuts. We also got treated to some great views of the Boston skyline. After passing through Adams Park, we made our way through streets until we reached the edge of the Arnold Arboretum.

For much of its first 150 years, this was rural farmland far outside of Boston in the town of Roxbury. In 1804, the expansion of Washington Street connected Boston to Dedham through Roslindale, resulting in increased traffic through the town. This was followed by the creation of a stop on the Boston and Providence Railroad, which started the transition of the town from a rural outpost to a densely settled neighborhood. It eventually became a classic streetcar suburb, with housing surrounding public transportation for easy access to Boston. In 1851, Roslindale seceded from Roxbury, and in 1873 it was annexed into Boston.

Roslindale is a good example of the late-20th century urban renewal in Boston. By the 1960s and 1970s, the city was called “dirty old Boston” due to its high crime, neglected infrastructure and pollution. The primary commercial area of this neighborhood fell into decline due to arson, crime and neglect. But neighborhood activism and city investments starting in the 1970s transformed Roslindale into the vibrant community we see today.

Day 1 of Walking City Trail: Jamaica Plain (~4 miles)

Our second to last neighborhood before hanging up our walking shoes was Jamaica Plain. This was the walk I’d been looking forward to all day, since it included the Arnold Arboretum. Jamaica Plain was founded in 1630 as part of Roxbury. There are two competing theories for the origin of the name: 1) it is a reference to the Triangle Trade involving sugar, rum (“Jamaica rum”) and enslaved people, and 2) that it was based on an Anglicization of a local Native leader. I’m not sure I like either of these explanations. This area was sparsely populated by farms through the 1600s. In the 18th century, the growing population of Boston came to increasingly rely on outlying farming regions such as Jamaica Plain to support their needs for meat and produce, which spurred its development into a more densely packed neighborhood. In 1873, the town was annexed into Boston.

Jamaica Plain has one of the greatest jewels in the Emerald Necklace: a 281 acre public park and botanical research institution run by Harvard University called the Arnold Arboretum. It was founded in 1872 by a gift from a wealthy whaling merchant. Harvard created the arboretum with the mission of increasing the knowledge of woody plants through research and education. In 1877, the landscape architect and designer of the Emerald Necklace, Frederick Law Olmsted, was selected to build a pathway through the park. Since the Arnold Arboretum is run by Harvard, we know there are some “wicked smaht” people working here.

I am not sure my pictures quite do justice to the staggering size and beauty of this place. The collection includes over 15,000 plants from North America and Asia. Since our walk was in April, we were unfortunately too early to see the flowering plants and trees.

Day 1 of Walking City Trail: Roxbury (~1 mile)

From the Arnold Arboretum we headed north into Southwest Corridor Park and then across a few blocks of Roxbury to arrive at Franklin Park. At 527 acres, this is the largest greenway in Boston. We followed the paved trails on the western edge of the park before making our way back into Jamaica Plain. At one point we came across the neglected ruins of former animal enclosures from the nearby zoo, which looked like a post-apocolyptic scene straight out of The Last of Us. We finally arrived at Jamaica Pond, bringing to a close our first day of the Walking City Trail.

Roxbury was founded in 1630 as one of the first towns of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Boston was originally a hilly peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus called the Boston Neck. Roxbury was located just south of the neck, making this hilly and rocky land - thus its original name of Rocksberry - the sole land route to the growing city. Its proximity to Boston made it an important town, supplying timber, stone, meat, and produce.

By the time Roxbury was annexed into the city of Boston in 1868, it had experienced several waves of immigration: starting with the original English settlers, followed by the Irish, and then the Germans. After the Civil War, Roxbury became a growing destination for southern Blacks, which was followed by another substantial wave of southern immigration after World War II. Today the city calls Roxbury the “heart of Black culture in Boston.” It was the home to several important leaders and events in the Civil Rights movement. In fact, when Martin Luther King was getting his doctorate at Boston University, he worked as an assistant to the minister of Roxbury’s historic Twelfth Baptist Church.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Jamaica Plain (~2 miles)

We woke up this morning feeling surprisingly good. After breakfast we took an Uber to where we left off on day 1 at Jamaica Pond and continued our walk through the neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. We were surprised to find that one of the stone stairways we climbed at Jamaica Pond was actually from the original John Hancock mansion on Beacon Hill. If you ever find yourself at the gold-domed State House on Beacon Hill, walk along the fence until you will find a plaque commemorating the former location of the John Hancock house. Built in the 1730s, the Hancock Manor was considered the most beautiful home in Boston. In one of the great tragedies of historic preservation, the state legislature chose not to purchase the home from his heirs in 1863, and it was sold at auction for $230 and promptly torn down. The only silverlining is the public realization of what was lost would spur the preservation movement in Boston.

From Jamaica Pond we walked north along the trails past Wards Pond and Willow Pond and into Olmsted Park. From here we left Jamaica Plain and entered our first new neighborhood of the day: Mission Hill.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Mission Hill (~3 miles)

From Jamaica Plain we walked into the streets of Mission Hill until we reached Nira Rock Urban Wild and Jefferson Playground, where we saw some very dedicated cricket players playing a game at 8 AM. We walked through more streets until we arrived at Parker Hilltop, which provided some nice but distant views of the downtown skyline and Boston Harbor. From here we passed by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and over to the Muddy River where we entered our next neighborhood. When we set out today, we had expected to get some flat walking after all the hills of yesterday. Unfortunately we appear to have forgotten that Mission Hill is… well, on a hill.

Mission Hill was a popular neighborhood in the 19th and early 20th century for Irish and some German immigrants. While Boston started as a town of English Puritans, it is very much a racially and ethnically diverse city today. The first major wave of immigration came with the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, which brought tens of thousands of unskilled poor Irish to the city. The second major wave of immigration occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century, driven by industrialization displacing workers in Europe and China. The third major wave came in the 1960s, bringing immigrants from Asia, Latin America and South America. Each new wave of immigrants brought a reshuffling of the neighborhoods, as the newest waves of immigrants moved into the least desirable neighborhoods. Today’s Mission Hill is an attractive and diverse neighborhood, with a large student population, and a median age of 23. I think my presence in this neighborhood might have moved the median age up to 24.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Fenway-Kenmore (~1 mile)

After leaving Mission Hill we arrived at the Riverway, a 34-acre greenway along the Muddy River that separates Boston from Brookline. This is of course yet another Olmsted park. The Muddy River is a collection of brooks and ponds that empty into a slow moving body of water that winds its way through this area. Unfortunately the city was doing a lot of restoration along the banks, so there were entire sections we could only see from the sidewalk. This greenway was created in the 1890s, and has many bridges that look like they could have been straight out of New York’s Central Park (yes, another Olmstead park). We eventually left the Riverway and entered the Fenway Victory Gardens, which is an expansive community garden. From here we passed various education institutions and museums - e.g. Boston University, Boston Conservancy of Music, Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. We were even able to catch a glimpse of the green metal walls of the most important religious pilgrimage sites in the world: Fenway Park.

The name Fenway Park comes from the marshland or “fens” that in the 19th century was filled to make the Fens Park. The ballpark was built in 1911, making it the oldest in baseball. Most of the greatest baseball players in history have played here, and it is home to one of the most famous superstitions in sports history: the Curse of the Bambino. In 1914, the Boston Red Sox acquired a young player by the name of George Herman Ruth from the Baltimore Orioles. He would go on to be one of the most prodigious power hitters in baseball, a Hall of Famer, and the Tom Brady of baseball (haha, just teasing you non-New Englanders). But in 1914, he was primarily known as a great pitcher that would lead the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1915, 1916 and 1918. But in 1920, the Red Sox owner sold Babe to the New York Yankees in order to raise money to finance a Broadway musical. This started what is known as the Curse of the Bambino, which saw the Red Sox go from one of the best teams in baseball to not seeing another championship for 84 years.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Back Bay (~1 miles)

Back Bay is one of the most beautiful and historic neighborhoods of Boston. It is filled with Victorian brownstones and famous streets such as Beacon, Commonwealth, Boylston and Newbury. It is also home to such notable sites as the Boston Public Library, the John Hancock Tower, and the Prudential Center. But we didn’t get to spend time at any of these sites today, since our walk was through one of my favorite parts of Boston: the Charles River Esplanade.

When the Puritans first landed on the Shawmut Peninsula, Back Bay was a bay at the mouth of the Charles River. This large body of water was surrounded by marshes and mudflats. In 1814, a roadway was constructed over a section of the bay to provide easier access to Watertown, effectively daming a large part of the estuary. Over time the use of this pond for disposing sewage and rubbish created a smelly and unsanitary mess. In 1857, the city came up with a solution: a massive project to fill in the water and create 500 acres of new land. Between 1857 and 1900, stately Victorian brownstones were constructed on European-inspired avenues on the new landfill. The construction coincided with innovations in heating, plumbing and lighting, making this the most coveted neighborhood in Boston.

In 1910, the city created the Charles River Dam, transforming a tidal estuary into a freshwater river, and providing an opportunity to create another Boston greenway. The Charles River Esplanade is a 64-acre park that contains open pathways, lawns, lagoons, pedestrian bridges, and views of the river and Cambridge. There is even a beer garden in the summer months, a children’s playground, baseball fields, and a community boating marina. This is also the location of my first date with Kristin at the Hatch Shell - a fact I guarantee you won’t hear on any other history tours. 😉

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Public Garden, Boston Common (<1 mile)

From the Esplanade we crossed back to Back Bay, went through the Public Garden, over the Swan Bridge, across Charles Street, through the Boston Common, down Boylston Street, and then followed Essex Street along the border between Chinatown and the Financial District. I probably should admit there was an unplanned stop at Bakey for some chocolate babka. But we all agreed we walked faster after this stop, so it was definitely for the best.

The Public Garden was once part of the large estuary at the mouth of the Charles River, with its shoreline roughly following along Charles Street. This 24 acre plot was filled in before the great project that made Back Bay, built from the gravel and soil of Beacon Hill. After much deliberation on how to use the new land, the city decided to turn it into the first botanical garden in the United States (1837). My two favorite areas of the Garden include the George Washington Statue and the Swan Bridge. Since our walk was in early April, the swan boats were in the water but lacking their swans.

After crossing Charles Street we walked through the Boston Common. This is the oldest public park in the United States (1634). It was once a remote rural area outside of Boston that was used primarily for community cattle grazing. The Boston Common was also a camp for the British soldiers during the occupation of Boston, and a staging ground for the Battle of Bunker Hill. On our way out of the Common we passed the new The Embrace sculpture, commemorating Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement.

As you walk through the Boston Common, looking north you will see beautiful historic brick homes lining Beacon Street. This is the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, which we unfortunately did not walk through. Until the end of the 18th century, this was a rural hilly area far from Boston. One of the few houses here was the Hanock Manor, which was home to the Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Massachusetts governor, John Hancock. But in the 1790s, the construction of the new gold-domed State House you see today resulted in rapid development of this area, complete with leveling the hills. It is now a historic neighborhood, preserving in time the 19th century character of Boston.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Chinatown (<1 mile)

At the end of Essex Street where it intersects the John F. Fitzgerald Surface Road, we turned into Mary Soo Hoo Park and walked to the entrance to Chinatown with its giant gate. We then crossed over the main surface roads into what is called the Leather District, up to South Station and across to the channel into Seaport. I should note here that the John F. Fitzgerald Surface Road was named for the former Boston mayor and grandfather of John F. Kennedy. He was of course Irish-American.

The neighborhood of Chinatown was made partly from the filling of tidal flats, this time in Dorchester Bay. In a previous post I had talked about how the waves of immigration to Boston often reshuffled neighborhoods. Chinatown evolved over time into a railroad hub for Boston. As a less desirable neighborhood, it changed hands over time from an Irish neighborhood to Jewish, Italian and then Chinese. The transition to Chinatown started when Chinese workers were brought to Massachusetts from San Francisco to break a strike at a shoe factory. They eventually settled in Chinatown and started to make this home. Immigration from China was slowed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, but increased substantially after World War II.

When I was 11, I came to visit my sister in Boston who was working then as a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital. One night she took me on a drive through Boston. I don’t remember much about that tour, but I do remember going through the Combat Zone. This was the red light district of Boston, located in Chinatown, and filled with all the seedy shops and illicit activities that a small town boy from Central New York could barely imagine. This area was cleaned up in the 1990s as part of Boston’s urban renewal, and today Chinatown is a clean, safe and attractive neighborhood with great restaurants and shops.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Seaport (<1 mile)

We crossed the Fort Point Channel over the Summer Street, turned to walk along the water by the Children’s Museum to Martin’s Park, and then back across the Boston Waterfront. This area always feels like coming home to me, since I started my company just a few blocks away on Summer Street. I’ve spent countless hours of my life here. Martin’s Park was named after Martin Richard, an eight-year-old boy who was killed in 2013 in the Boston Marathon Bombing. I still remember that day like it was yesterday.

The Fort Point Channel is a waterway that separates Downtown and South Boston. The entire area that today is the Seaport was once part of Dorchester Bay. Almost 1,000 acres of land was created here in the 19th century in an attempt to make Boston more competitive in the shipping industry. Unfortunately by the time the project was finished, shipping had already moved on to other ports such as Philadelphia. The result was a giant stretch of empty land that contained only warehouses, parking lots and a fish pier for much of the 20th century.

In the early 2000s, Boston Mayor Menino (1993-2014) set out to transform this area into what he called the “Innovation District.” His push coincided with the completion of the Ted Williams Tunnel underneath the Boston Harbor, which sparked renewed developer interest in the neighborhood. Over the next 20 years, the Seaport was transformed with office buildings, restaurants, condominiums and shops. It is now home to many of the tech companies of Boston. Detractors complain there is a lack of greenspace in this neighborhood (true), and that its architecture looks more like Dallas than Boston (true). But it still remains an incredible achievement for Boston, and an important step in the city’s continued commitment to business and technology.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Downtown (~1 miles)

Downtown is the neighborhood most people who visit Boston go see. It includes many of the historic sites - e.g. Old South Meeting House, Old State House, Faneuil Hall, the waterfront. Our path took us on the Boston Harborwalk, which goes along the water before passing into the North End neighborhood. It is actually one of my favorite walks to take visitors on, since it has beautiful views of harbor and shows off maritime Boston.

We passed what is known as Long Wharf, right near the Boston Aquarium. In 18th century Boston, this entire eastern side of the peninsula was filled with piers that stretched out the harbor. The most important of these was Long Wharf, which reached 1/2 of a mile into the harbor, providing access to deep water for ships. This wharf was built around 1710, and was designed to be over 50 feet wide with room for docking 50 ships. It was lined with shops that sold imported goods from around the world, making it the primary marketplace of Boston before the Faneuil Hall. It was also the location from which British troops embarked in 1768 to enforce the King’s taxation laws, and from where they evacuated in 1776 under the watchful eyes of George Washington’s artillery on Dorchester Heights.

To get a sense of the scale of this original wharf, you only have to look at the Boston Custom House, a beautiful white stone clocktower that rises from the skyline. The building at the base of this tower was built in 1837 on the mainland about 100’ from the wharf - so you can use this tower to mark the original shoreline. Over the subsequent years, much of this original waterfront was filled in, making the shoreline we see today.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: North End (~2 miles)

We left Downtown to enter the North End: our second to last neighborhood on our walk. By now we were all tired and more than ready to get home. This trip took us through the Christopher Columbus Park, on to the streets of the North End to Paul Revere Mall, then back through the winding streets until we reached the Charles Street Dam, in the shadow of the iconic Zakim Bridge. The North End is known as the Italian neighborhood of Boston. It is the place you go for a great pasta dinner, a slice of pizza, or an after dinner cannoli (“leave the gun, take the cannoli”).

In the 18th century, this area was one of the more fashionable places to live. The last British Colonial governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, had his stately mansion here just a few houses down from his less wealthy neighbor, Paul Revere. During the first wave of immigration to Boston in the Great Potato Famine (1845-1852), this became one of the most crowded and least desirable neighborhoods, making it the home of choice for many poor Irish and Jewish immigrants. It was in the early 20th century, during the second wave of immigration, Italian immigrants flooded this neighborhood, giving it the character we see today.

We passed some great historic sites on our walk, including Paul Revere’s house (1680), the site of Thomas Hutchinson’s house (only a plaque remains), the Old North Church, and the Copp's Hill Burying Ground.

Day 2 of Walking City Trail: Charlestown (~1 mile)

From the North End we passed through the locks over the Charles River Dam and entered the last neighborhood of our walk: Charlestown. We walked through Paul Revere Park, into Constitutional Plaza, and to Monument Square, the site of the Bunker Hill Monument. We had considered walking the 294 steps up to the top of the monument, but Kristin told us this "might not end our great walk on a high note.”

Usually when people tell the history of Charlestown, they tell the story of the Battle of Bunker Hill. But instead I'd like to tell the story of the Boston busing crisis, which while unattractive, reveals the conflicted history Boston has had with racism. Much of this history can be attributed to Irish immigrants and their descendents, who were themselves once the victims of intense discrimination. As the Irish rose from poverty, they practiced tribalism against groups that came after them - particularly African Americans. While Massachusetts was one of the first states to mandate public school integration (1855), by the 20th century Boston public schools were desegregated in concept only, with white schools receiving substantially more funding than Black schools. After Black activists failed to get action from the Irish-American dominated Boston School Committee, the NAACP filed a lawsuit in 1972. A victory for the plaintiff resulted in court mandated desegregation of the Boston public school system (1974-1988). The next 14 years brought about an intense fight against racial integration in Irish-American neighborhoods like Charlestown. Many “townies” treated the Black students bused to their high school with racism and violence. In one tragic incident, three white teenagers shot and paralyzed a 15-year-old Black student playing in a football game in Charlestown. In 1988, a judge declared the integration of public schools complete and busing was stopped, but the simmering racial tensions were never fully resolved.

One of the most significant results of the busing crisis was the "white flight" from neighborhoods such as Charlestown to the suburbs. While there is still a working-class Irish-American demographic in "the town", the slow march of gentrification has brought an increasing number of upper-middle and middle-class professionals to Charlestown. In many ways, the fight against integrated schools in the 1970s and 1980s would mark the end of almost a century of Irish-American power in Boston, as many who opposed integration either moved away or were voted out of power. The descendents of the Great Potato Famine had many great accomplishments in Boston, but unfortunately their role in Civil Rights remains an indelible stain on their legacy.

Back Home

After lunch at the Warren Tavern in Charleston, we took an Uber back home. We arrived tired, a little sore, and happy we have completed our 28 mile walk through Boston.

While I didn’t grow up in Boston, I’ve spent my entire professional career here. I chose the city for reasons only a 22 year old could explain: all the tech jobs seemed to be in San Francisco or Boston, and Boston was a lot closer. But I stayed because I remain convinced it’s the best city in the United States. In addition to all its history, it’s filled with countless cultural, educational and outdoor attractions. It is also the home of some of the best universities and research facilities in the world - and as we have seen the last two days - has many beautiful parks and waterways. And of course, with the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, Patriots and Revolution, is there a better sports city in the world? Hint: that was a rhetorical question.

Thanks for joining me on my 28 mile walk. I hope you enjoyed the tour. I know I did. 😉