Road Tripping Through the National Parks: Massachusetts

Massachusetts is the next edition of our “Road Tripping Through the National Parks” series. The Bay State has a lot of history to offer, especially when it comes to the American Revolution and Industrial Revolution. Yet there are still some great spaces of natural beauty on display here too. To start your journey here you are going to want to fly into Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. You can probably go without a rental for your first day, and you can start exploring the city by taking the blue line of the T train system. 

If you stop at the Aquarium stop, the three parks you will explore on your first day are within walking distance. In fact, the ferry station to get to Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area is right next to the Aquarium stop. The park preserves a series of islands off the coast of Boston, which includes areas for wildlife and historical features. Your best bet is to get an advanced reservation for a ferry to Georges Island. Georges Island is one of the few islands that has visitor amenities as it has a visitor center and a cafeteria. The visitor center is small but orients you quite well with the island’s features (which are mostly centered around the historic fort located there). The cafeteria serves just basic food so it's nice for a quick bite before you get an actual meal on the mainland. Fort Warren is the main attraction here. It was originally constructed to protect Boston Harbor, but by the time it was completed Boston wasn’t a target by any foreign enemies. Instead its main purpose ended up being a training ground for soldiers during the Civil War. The fort now provides for a fun adventure, especially during the summer where the dark and cool corridors of the fort provide relief from the sun. Once you take the ferry back to the mainland, your next stop is right across the street from the dock. Boston National Historical Park preserves Boston’s American Revolution history. There are multiple districts of the park throughout the city, but if you want to hit the main highlight head into Faneuil Hall. Faneuil Hall was a meeting place for the Sons of Liberty in the lead up to the American Revolution. It now serves as the visitor center for both Boston National Historical Park and Boston African American National Historic Site. If you are able to get a tour spot in advance you can access the historic upper level. If not, you can check out the exhibits on the main and lower levels. Quincy Market is right next door and is a great place to grab lunch or dinner. Your next activity involves walking. You can catch the Freedom Trail (part of Boston National Historical Park) as it goes on for about a mile to the Boston Common. On the way you pass multiple historical settings including the site of the Boston Massacre. At its terminus at the Boston Common it morphs into the Black Heritage Trail (part of Boston African American National Historic Site), which interprets the many important contributions that African Americans have made to Boston’s history. The main highlight of the trail is the 54th Massachusetts Regiment Memorial, one of the only mixed race regiments that fought in the Civil War.

You are going to need a car for your second day as you take the thirty minute drive to Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site. This park preserves the home of Frederick Law Olmsted, who was a landscape architect that helped organize many of the Boston parks that you walked through the day before and assisted in helping develop many of the parks out west that would eventually become national parks. There is no visitor center here but there are rangers on duty inside the home that can help guide you around. It’s a different approach to most units of the National Park Service that preserve historic homes where you need a reservation to even get into the house. It’s nice to see how effectively Olmsted utilized windows in his home to make it feel like it was built into the nature of his surrounding yard. Your next stop, John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, is just a fifteen minute drive away. This is another historical home as it’s the childhood home of JFK. This has a more relaxed reservation system, but you still need to check in with a ranger in the visitor center that is built into the home’s basement to get on a tour. The interesting part about this park is that the tour of the home is completely narrated by Rose Kennedy, JFK’s mother. It’s an interesting and personable touch that makes it quite memorable. One of the more unique parks in the national park system, Longfellow House - Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, is your next stop. It’s another fifteen minute drive across the Charles River to get there. The park preserves the home of famed American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which also happened to be the same building that George Washington used as his headquarters after he arrived for the Siege of Boston. There’s a great set of gardens that you can walk through at the park, but the real highlight of the park is finding your way onto a tour of the house. The tour is mainly focused on the Wadsworth family history of the building, but there are enough American Revolution artifacts laying around the house to not leave out the original purpose of this building. Very few parks in the system have as much of a diverse range of history as this one does. From there it’s a thirty minute drive to your next stop, Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site. Saugus Iron Works preserves the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, especially when it comes to iron working, within its park limits. So far all of the parks you have visited today, including this one, are located in the suburbs of Boston so it can be quite the hectic atmosphere. However, it is at this park where you start to feel the hustle and bustle of the city slip away. There is much more room to walk around here as there is an entire village preserved within its boundaries. The Saugus River also weaves its way through the park. You can start your journey at the park with a trip to the visitor center, which has nice displays on the iron working process and the archeology studies that have taken place here (the buildings on display currently are reconstructions but they have discovered remnants of the original buildings). A walk through the reconstructed village is the next obvious step and it’s probably the best part of the park. The village feels like it’s something straight out of The Lord of the Rings, especially during the spring and summer months. Your final stop on this busy day is another thirty minute drive away. Salem Maritime National Historic Site is our nation’s first National Historic Site (there is currently legislation in Congress to change it into a “National Historical Park” and strip it of this honor so make your voice heard on the matter), and it preserves Salem’s shipping history. It’s an odd park that seems lost among the city’s history with witchcraft, but it’s also quite expansive. The visitor center is centrally located in the city and has nice reconstructions of early ships and many exhibits on the city and park’s importance in American history. If you are going to do any other district of the park make sure it’s the Derby Wharf. This area preserves two wharfs, a replica of an 18th century ship, and a lighthouse at the end of the larger wharf. There is a lot to see and do here, and I’m always surprised at the amount of wildlife (birds and fish mainly) that you can see on just a quick walk down the main wharf.

Day three begins with a forty five minute drive to Lowell National Historical Park. Lowell National Historical Park is another park that honors the Industrial Revolution as it preserves the textile mills that at one point made this city famous. This is one of the larger parks you have visited so far. So much so that the park has its own trolley system to transport visitors from one end of the park to the other. While the visitor center is a good place to spend a lot of time at in most parks, here the visitor center is located in somewhat of a sketchy area. You can also get the same experience that you could at the visitor center at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum, which is in a much more scenic area of the park. After you check out the visitor center and/or museum, the park has a series of walks that go along the system of canals that are still located here. It’s a fun way to conclude your time here. Minute Man National Historical Park is just a thirty minute drive away. This park preserves historic Concord and Lexington, the site of the first skirmishes between British and Colonist forces in the American Revolution. The park also preserves some literary history as Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne and other writers have spent time here. You could spend a good day here just walking the Battle Road Trail, which connects Lexington and Concord as well as the park’s two visitor centers. In springtime it’s a fantastic place to enjoy some nature as the mountain laurel blooms. If you don’t have much time you can shorten the hike and still get a lot of it. The eastern end of Battle Road Trail has a lot of the park’s highlights including the main visitor center, Paul Revere Capture Site and multiple eyewitness houses (yes, the park does a great job of preserving 18th century buildings). Your final stop on the day is a ninety minute drive away so you will probably have to go for the shorter adventure at Minute Man. Springfield Armory National Historic Site preserves the eponymous armory that served as a major weapon supplier for America for almost two centuries. The armory was commissioned as one of America’s two main gun suppliers by George Washington (the other was at Harpers Ferry, which actually had major importance in the lead up to the Civil War) and continued to be a major player in the weapons business through World War II. It’s a long history that is well interpreted by the park’s vast weapons collection and two main exhibits. The park also has a third rotating exhibit (for instance during 2016 for the National Park Service’s centennial they showcased historic weapons that were used in national parks). It’s a quick and easy visit that can be concluded with a picnic on the park’s vast grounds (they are currently shared with an active college).

Day four begins with the ninety minute drive to Adams National Historical Park. This park preserves multiple historic buildings that hold importance to the Adams family, which gave us two presidents in John Adams and John Quincy Adams. I visited this park during COVID so your experience will be different from mine. The visitor center was temporarily moved to the barn at Peacefield, which also had some temporary exhibits on display. The normal visitor center is located in central Quincy at a busy plaza. Normally you can tour all of the homes. Peacefield was the main Adams residence, and while I was able to visit it, I was stuck to the outside tour. The gardens there are still maintained and make for a good morning walk. From Adams National Historical Park, it’s an hour drive to your next stop: New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. This park preserves the city of New Bedford’s rich history in the whaling industry. Herman Melville lived here for part of his life, and Moby Dick is partially based on his experiences here. The park has two great museum experiences in the park’s visitor center and the New Bedford Whaling Museum. This is where you will spend the majority of your time. The park also has a couple of historic buildings such as the Seamen's Bethel (where Melville and others attended church services) and some access to the city harbor (where the views are glorious). You can finish up your day by starting your journey to Cape Cod.

We’re saving the best for last as on your final full day you are visiting Cape Cod National Seashore. The seashore preserves the outer portions of Cape Cod and its beautiful beaches, marshes and forests. There’s so much to do here that you could spend an entire week doing new experiences, but the ideal day starts with a walk at Fort Hill. This area has expansive views of Nauset Marsh that are simply stunning. The area also has two places of historical importance: the Penniman House (an extravagant and colorful home of a whaling captain that is right in line with what you were exploring the day before) and Indian Rock (a large boulder that the Nauset tribe used to sharpen their tools with). Take a five minute drive further into the Cape to get to the park’s main visitor center: Salt Pond Visitor Center. This visitor center has access to multiple hiking and biking trails as well as an exhibit on the area’s history. Don’t spend too much time here because the Nauset Marsh Trail right out the back door is another highlight of the park. While the views of Nauset Marsh aren’t as expansive as they were at Fort Hill, the Nauset Marsh Trail makes up for it with the variety of settings that you experience in such a short hike. At only just over a mile in length, you walk through kettle ponds, think pine forests and marshes that all display a major sense of beauty while on this trail. Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach are either a quick drive, walk or shuttle away from this area so you might as well enjoy the relaxing setting for most of the afternoon. Just make sure that if you choose to swim here during the fall months you heed all warnings and stay on the lookout as it's an active great white shark territory at that time of year. You can pick one of two options for your finale at this park. Option one involves going on the best hike in the park: Great Island Trail. This trail is located in Wellfleet off a tiny spit of land that emerges off of the Bay Side of the Cape. The trail begins with a walk through a tiny forest and a series of marshes before entering a larger forest. This larger forest hides the site of an old whaling tavern. Emerging from the forest, you enter a strip of bayside beach that eventually disappears into the water at high tide. You can follow this beach back to the beginning of the trail. The hike is the ideal location for sunset so make sure to be here if it's a cloudless evening. Your second option is to go deep into the outer cape near the Truro and Provincetown townline. Located here is the park’s most unique hike. The Sand Dune Trail cuts through a field of sand dunes on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a popular trail but the dunefield is so large you do feel isolated during most of your hike. The sandy floor makes it difficult terrain to hike through so it’s ultimately a challenging but rewarding hike with so many unique views. At one end of the trail you are looking at some of the towering buildings and structures of Provincetown emerging behind dunes, while at the other you are weaving your way through historic shacks as you listen to the crashing waves of the Atlantic. Either option is a great way to finish off your trip.