Outside of finding street parking (parking lot is closed) and walking your way around scaffolding…read moreit was a great stop on our tour of National Historic sites in Massachusetts. Rangers & Volunteers were friendly and answered our questions. Walking through the site and watching the video gave us in-sight on the contributions Olmstead made to the building of America. Central Park is one of our favorites.

The house is really nice, and you can see the thought that went into his landscaping of Olmsted's…read moreown house that applied to Central Park and other projects. You feel you are in nature even though you're in a residential neighborhood. Tours are free, and ours was done by an intern, so he knew quite a bit, but he did struggle with questions that were off script. Still, the tour focused on Olmsted's workshop which was authentic and interesting how the process of creating these outdoor spaces worked. He really created an industry, and having natural spaces in bustling spaces does a lot of good for everyone's well-being. The rest of the house has a video summary of Olmstead and there was an exhibit more on his family. The garden is a delight to walk through. The gift shop was sparse though. This site was looking like a 5+ except they had created a "game" for some reason about how JFK and nepotism. Did JFK's father appoint him president? Did Olmsted's father give him a successful architecture firm? What is the connection? They both had privilege, but so did a lot of people who didn't do a fraction of what they did. The fact that NPS paid tax money for someone to create this weird game is pretty insulting. Hopefully it was a volunteer intern who snuck it in the back room, but that's wishful thinking. This is a nice historic site to visit for the most part, so hopefully they stick to showing off the workshop and some insight into Olmstead's life and great works. That part was great.

Yesterday morning, a friend and I went on a 90 minute Boston by Foot tour " Slavery and Abolition…read morein Massachusetts." It was excellent. The tour guide was Liam and was extremely knowledgeable about American history. There were 18 people on the tour from age 10 to senior citizens. He had to speak very loudly as there were lots of visitors to Boston given that it was Juneteenth holiday and FIFA Soccer fans were all over the place. I learned a lot and absolutely recommend this tour. In the afternoon, we went on another excellent 90 minute Boston by Foot tour "Black Voices: Writers for a 19th Century Revolution" which I highly recommend. The tour guide (can't remember her name) was expertly prepared with snippets for tour attendees to read out loud (if you wanted to) from each writer discussed. Then, she put the reading in context with Boston and African American history and the site we stopped at on Beacon Hill. I learned a lot on this tour and live in the Boston area. There is a lot of walking up and down tiny streets so wear comfortable walking shoes!

I've done a few tours with this company and they were good but the one I did today with Mike…read morecovering Chinatown was outstanding! I learned so much about the history of the area in a very engaging way. I couldn't believe that I walked the same streets so many times before and I missed so many interesting points of interest. I also learned that the guides for this company are volunteers so you will learn from someone who is passionate about history and culture and do it because they love it!

If you really want to learn the history of Boston, you have to book this tour. First I will start…read moreoff with our tour guide (Neal) What a amazing guy he is. Neal stayed in contact with us via text, and even offered to pick us up from our hotel. Unfortunately, we stayed outside of the pick up zones. After meeting up with Neal, he told us what the agenda for the day will be. I really appreciated the fact he offered to catored the tour to what we had interest in. Nice being able to have options. Neal made learning about history fun and interesting. I have been on tours where the tour guides was dull, and you can tell they have being doing this so long they don't enjoy it themselves. Neal was the complete opposite, he reminded me of a grandfather that you would sit up under. Just to hear stories of the days of old. We learned so much from this tour, that if I didn't book this tour. The trip to Boston would not have been as fun or complete.

Loved, loved, loved this tour! What made the tour was our announcer. Max Marshall Arch provided…read morehistorical information while entertaining us with his humor! If you plan on taking this tour, try to get on his boat - he will not disappoint! Thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend if you are visiting Boston.

What a great venue for welcoming Visitors to Boston, but also for all of us in the area to enjoy…read morethis land and sea aquatic truck! Go with a group of friends or when celebrating something is a good event to board and try something different! All the different names on each Duck Boat! You will love walking aboard!

We had a great North End tour with David today. In spite of the rain throughout the tour David kept…read moreus entertained along with providing great and interesting detail throughout the tour. David's appreciation for food made the tour that much better. We were definitely ready to eat some great North end food by the end of the tour. Along with David's entertaining stories he also shared a very moving story when telling us about the beautifully designed Holocaust memorial. Free Tours and David are highly recommended.

4.5 stars. We…read morejoined the Free tours by foot in NOLA/ Garden District back in Feb, had a great experience and was glad to find out there is one in Boston as well. Signing up for the tour was easy enough though I don't really like the idea of paying the (optional) fee via PayPal. For some reason when I did that in New Orleans, it automatically created a new PayPal account for me, based on the email address I used. (Even though it says you don't need a PayPal account...) But this time when I attempted to use the same email to pay, it just wouldn't go through despite resetting the password and what not. Ended up asking hubby to pay with his PayPal. Quite a hassle. Other than that, our guide, Brian, was hilarious and passionate about educating us and I had a great time. We took the tour on Mother's Day and half of the 25 or so customers were from Europe. I think maybe there is a little language barrier as not everyone laughed at Brian's jokes. Plus it was a super windy and cold day and some just wanna go back to bed I guess. The tour was about 1 hour 45 mins. It really didn't walk far, maybe 1-1.5 miles. But I truly enjoyed the story telling. Highly recommend.

I'm a little bit of a history geek, what can I say? I was the kid that relished the opportunity to…read moretalk to my grandparents about their lives growing up, what our community used to be like and look like, what their parents experienced. Finding old photos of towns and cities that I'm familiar with now are unbelievably fascinating, and preserving that which was is something near and dear to my heart. Which is why I'm a little in love with the The Greater Portland Landmarks, the safeguards of Portland's history via buildings, neighborhoods, and outdoor spaces. Through education and advocacy these great stewards of urban conservancy have helped to maintain some amazing spots throughout the city of Resurgam, while thoughtfully bridging the gap from the character of the city that was to the character that the city's beginning to have. I've had the opportunity to explore some of their catalog of public offerings, including Portland Observatory tours (https://www.yelp.com/biz/portland-observatory-portland), Custom House tours (https://www.yelp.com/biz/united-states-custom-house-portland), and a tour of the Homes of Portland's Golden Age (where we walked around the Spring Street Historic District [which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in '71] and viewed an array of impressive architectural styles throughout the past couple centuries. That's just some of their ongoing events; they also host a lot of other awesome shindigs (like an annual decade-specific themed gala at a large mansion in Portland). The folks who work at GPL are dedicated, passionate, and well-versed in all things Portland. I care deeply about the past, present, and future of this great city, and I feel rest assured that there are others that do so as well!

Take their tours, donate, support this worthy and well-run cause…read more... In August, I was visiting Portland to eat and relax and look at the water. When my companion suggested (ah-hem, insisted) that we take the Greater Portland Landmarks walking architectural tour, I agreed but had no idea what I was getting into. Like, what? The headquarters or main building is on Spring Street behind the MFA, where I'd been several times already. It's a straight ten-minute walk from the Old Port area, so pretty easy to access. When we got there, we were greeted warmly by the staff and invited inside to wait for the tourists to gather. They allow (and encourage? insist upon?) on-line reservations, which we had. We pad electronically with credit cards using their portable chip reader. It was good to see historic preservation embracing technology. Ten bucks each, totally worth it. Our group of about ten tourists was led by two men, both school teachers, who tag-teamed the direction of the group and the speaking. They were warm and funny and kind and helpful and full of information. When one of them knew that the other was the expert, he'd say, And now XXXX is going to talk about the roofline of Federalist style buildings. Or some such. And the information is transferrable. I was recently in downtown Philadelphia where I was able to identify architectural styles that I learned about in Portland. The walk isn't that long distance-wise because they essentially keep close to the neighborhood around their building but it is strenuous and takes a while because they cover so much, including the Victoria House (from the outside). They encouraged questions and engagements and were helpful and attentive to those with limitations (slow walkers, the deaf, etc). At one point, we Zillowed the price of a house that was on the tour, which connected past and present. The guides even got us an inside tour of the private Cumberland Club. I would do it again. I would do their other tours (including of the Observatory on Munjoy Hill). If I lived in Portland....

Gordan Harris is an Ipswich treasure! Wonderful tour learning more about our family history.read more

We took a tour last week with Gordon Harris. He does tours unique to your ancestors, which is what…read morewe opted to do. It was wonderful! He has a wealth of knowledge about Ipswich's history, the various homes from different periods in history and great stories to tell. He also researched our ancestor and took us to the areas where he and his children owned land, as well as the historic grave yards. What a wonderful way to get a glimpse into our family that proceeded us. We highly recommend taking a tour with Gordon! Thanks again Gordon for such a wonderful experience.

As a history buff who grew up in the Salem area and read a lot about the witch trials on my own, I…read moreexpected that nothing I would hear would be new information. However, I was pleasantly surprised to learn so much! Beth is extremely knowledgeable about Salem's rich history, from the witch trials till today. Beth was able to include the witch trials, the revolutionary war, and even included a sort of architectural history tour where she showed us important structures from Salem's very beginning, meeting places during the founding of The United States, and even some structures seen in the Disney film Hocus Pocas. Beth's passion for Salem and Salem's history is infectious. A top rate tour guide for sure.

Beth was absolutely AMAZING and made our trip to Salem so special. She totally catered to what we…read morewere interested in and gave us such detailed and interesting history about the city and so many specific buildings, spots, graveyards and lore. She even went over the time because we were asking so many questions. We were a large, chaotic group of witchy girls and she totally kept our mood and energy up! Would 100% recommend this tour for bigger groups that want a private, spooky Salem tour.