Bostonians don’t let the weather stop us, even in the coldest months. This is New England, after all, so we know how to make the most of winter. Join us as we venture out into the icy air or retreat inside to cozy cafes and fireside tables, with food and drink to warm you from the inside out.
Sometimes the best way to survive winter is to embrace it – don your warmest coats, hats and gloves, go outside, and play! Boston offers plenty of opportunities to do so, even right downtown at the Boston Common, where there’s sledding on Flagstaff Hill and ice skating on the Frog Pond. But locals know the hills in the outer neighborhoods are even more exciting, such as at the Sugar Bowl in Jamaica Plain, Walsh playground in Dorchester, and Fallon Field in Roslindale. Escape the crowds on the Frog Pond by heading to The Rink at 401 Park, in Fenway, or Skate @ Canal District, in Kendall Square in Cambridge.
You don’t have to venture too far out of the city for more adventurous snowy ski action. West of Boston, Weston Ski Center in Weston and Great Brook Farm in Carlisle both offer picturesque countryside, groomed trails, and equipment rental for cross-country skiing. For downhill, the Blue Hills Ski Area is just 15 miles south, in Canton.
If you prefer your winter sports at slower speeds, head to Harbor Way in the Seaport District to try your hand at curling. Don’t worry, it’s a lot more fun to do it than to watch it on TV! For less action and more relaxation, do winter the Nordic way with a visit to Moki Sauna Village on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. This outdoor wellness center offers wood-fired saunas and refreshing plunge pools for the ultimate winter warmup.
No matter what your winter recreation, you’re fortunately never far from a rich and rewarding cup of hot chocolate. Bostonians go cuckoo for cocoa, especially for the French hot chocolate at the Thinking Cup (in the Back Bay, the North End and Downtown) and for the dark hot chocolate at LA Burdick (in Harvard Square and in the Back Bay). For extra oomph, cozy up inside Caffé Vittoria in the North End for hot chocolate spiked with Kahlúa and brandy.
If all these outdoor activities are making you shiver, never fear. Boston offers an endless array of indoor attractions for those who prefer to escape rather than embrace the cold. Candlepin Bowling is a classic New England pastime – a regional variation on ten-pin that uses cylindrical pins and smaller balls. Try it at Sacco’s Bowl Haven in Somerville, and follow up with fabulous pizza and craft beers from Flatbread Pizza. Missing your favorite summertime activities? Visit PuttShack in the Seaport District to play a round of mini-golf, or PKL in South Boston to battle it out on the pickleball courts. Both have
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The area around Hardcastle in West Yorkshire springs into life in mid-March. The woodland floor transforms as if by magic into a soft carpet of wildflowers with bluebells appearing later in the season. The area was once called Little Switzerland because of its steep lush valleys bisected by rushing rivers, silver streams and footpaths. We found it to be the perfect antidote to winter, with shafts of golden sunlight casting their magic rays on all the lovely foliage. Head for a nice pub lunch at the Old Gate in Hebden after a morning walk.Nigel
San Francisco has long been a food city, once having had the highest restaurant density in the country. The pandemic upended the industry, and combined with the rising costs of Bay Area living, many beloved restaurants closed or moved to cheaper neighboring cities. However, the SF food scene is still kicking – even optimistic – and new restaurants are opening all the time.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kate Boardman, a 36-year-old former teacher and current content creator from Massachusetts who has lived abroad for the past 12 years in countries including Vietnam, Australia, Guatemala, and Bahrain. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
A holiday is always a good day to market travel deals. But what about a holiday that comes not ‘but once a year’ like Christmas, but just once every four years?
Though her work on Saturday Night Live keeps her tethered to New York City, comedian Chloe Fineman can most often be found criss-crossing the country to film in Los Angeles or back to the Bay Area, where she grew up. Recently, for her campaign with Nütrl Vodka Seltzer, she got to see a new place: Mexico City. “First of all, my brain still can’t understand how it’s a three-hour flight from LA [and five hours from New York], so I could meet all my friends in the middle,” she says. “And it was the most beautiful city. We saw luchadores wrestling, and the food was unbelievable. Some of the best meals in my life were in Mexico City!”
A new flight connection calls for a landing ovation – and a new set-jetting package for Sandals Resorts and Beaches Resorts guests – as the first-ever U.S. commercial flight descends upon majestic Ocho Rios, Jamaica on February 24th. In homage to the swift and seamless journey directly into the Caribbean Riviera, Sandals’ and Beaches’ new “Love and Let Fly” package transcends traveler wanderlust from the silver screen to the golden Jamaican beaches coveted for decades by film producers and vacationers alike. MORE TIME TO ‘BOND’, LESS TIME IN TRANSIT
Last year, my parents took their first-ever group tour to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. You know, those tours where you share a coach bus with 30 strangers for a week, stop at popular tourist draws, stay in pre-arranged hotels, and go on guided city walks with bright orange audio boxes that might as well be “look at me, I’m a tourist” placards. I tried to dissuade them, offering to plan their entire Eurotrip myself, but they ultimately opted for the tour’s convenience and relative all-inclusiveness. Now they’re absolutely hooked, with two more tours under their belt this year.
Maryland’s Eastern Shore, stretching from the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic Ocean, is a vast landscape of farmland, tidal wetlands, and small towns, many of which retain their character and architecture of the past, thanks to significant preservation efforts. The Eastern Shore is about an hour and 20 minutes from DC, making it an easy day trip from the nation’s capital.