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Handy for Back Bay, this former private residence usually rents room by the week or month. Each has kitchenette, cable TV, free local phone calls, and maid service twice weekly.

Concord Rebels put the Redcoats to rout at North Bridge, Concord’s main revolutionary battle site. This historical town was also the epicenter of American literature in the mid-19th century. Visitors can tour the homes of writers Ralph Waldo Emerson (Cambridge Turnpike), Nathaniel Hawthorne (455 Lexington Rd), and Louisa May Alcott (399 Lexington Rd). Henry David Thoreau’s woodland haunts at Walden Pond now feature hiking trails and a swimming beach.

Check your inhibitions at this subterranean boutique’s door. While male anatomy-shaped ketchup dispensers deserve a laugh, some of the sex toys toward the back might sooner merit a wince.

Family friendly, with clean sand, picnic areas, lifeguards, and spectacular Boston views. (see Day Trips: The Seaside).

Views of Downtown don’t get much better than those from this recently revitalized beach and park area in East Boston. A clean beach, picnic areas, and lifeguards make this a favorite with families.

Officially listed as an “Armed Services YMCA,” this 147-room facility in Charlestown Navy Yard welcomes all. Rooms are clean, bright, and modern – some have twin beds, others queen-size doubles.

This was among the country’s first upscale urban shopping malls. It counts such du mode tenants as Armani Exchange, Tiffany, Neiman Marcus, and Bebe plus locally owned shops such as the arts and crafts boutique, Artful Hand.

With a commitment to exhibiting works by promising New England artists, this non-profit organization boasts a 120-year history of providing young artists with that crucial first break.

This well-kept Back Bay hotel is frequented by conventioneers who balk at the rates of other nearby chains. Rooms are small, quirky, and old-fashioned in character.

Trace the history of Boston on the thousands of tombstones here, from the mean-spirited Mather family, theocrats who ruled the early city, to the valiant patriots slain in the fight for freedom. In the Battle of Bunker Hill (see Washington Takes Command (1776)), the British, who occupied the city in 1775, manned a battery from this site and fired on neighboring Charlestown. There are sweeping views of the harbor.