Things to Do in Boston with Kids

Boston is the rare American city where the transit math works in a family's favor: children age eleven and under ride the MBTA free, with no limit on how many ride with one adult, which quietly makes a day out here cheaper than the same day in Washington or San Francisco. What decides whether a Boston day actually works is everything else — which of the big museums are shut on the day you picked, which famous attraction has already closed for the year, and how much of the city is genuinely free rather than free-with-a-pass. This guide is built around those, with every figure checked against the operators' own pages rather than a decade of copied listicles. It links out to the rest of our Boston guides — the museums, the zoos and aquarium, the parks, the harbor, and the seasonal ones — and ends with a live grid of the family events actually happening this week.

Updated September 16, 2026 · refreshed weekly

The T with kids: Children age 11 and under ride the MBTA free — no cap on how many per adult. Subway $2.40, local bus $1.70
Closed midweek: Boston Children's Museum closed Tuesdays · MFA closed Tuesdays · ICA closed Mondays
Free, no ticket: Boston Public Library at Copley, Boston Public Market, the Arnold Arboretum, Castle Island, the USS Constitution herself
Greenway Carousel: $4 a ride, daily 11am–7pm, 42-inch height rule — designed with the Institute for Human Centered Design
Gone until spring: The Swan Boats are “closed for the season. See you in April 2027.”

Start with the T, because the T is the cheap part

The MBTA's rule is short and generous: “Children age 11 and under ride the MBTA for free.” There is no two-children-per-adult cap of the kind Washington applies, and it covers rail and bus alike. From twelve, everyone pays: $2.40 for a subway ride, $1.70 on a local bus, flat rate regardless of distance — which is its own small mercy, because it means a trip out to Franklin Park Zoo costs the same as a stop down the Green Line. Tap a contactless card or a phone at the gate; you do not need to buy anything in advance. The one thing to register before you plan around it: a group of ten or more children has to register the trip through the MBTA's field-trip form, “regardless of the number of chaperones”, so a birthday party riding in is a different administrative animal from a family. Walking is the other half of the answer. The core of what visitors want — the Common, the Public Garden, the Freedom Trail, Faneuil Hall, the Greenway, the North End — is a compact, largely flat loop, and the distances that look intimidating on a map are fifteen minutes on foot. The distances that genuinely are drives are the zoo, the Arboretum, Castle Island and anything past Route 128, and each of those has its own guide below.

The closed-day trap, and it catches three of the big four

Boston's major museums are closed on days you would not guess, and they are not the same days. The Boston Children's Museum — the one most families build a rainy Tuesday around — is closed Tuesdays, and runs 9:00am to 4:00pm the rest of the week, opening an hour later at 10:00am on the first Saturday of each month. The Museum of Fine Arts is also closed Tuesdays, with hours of 10 to 5 most days and a late 10-to-10 on Thursdays and Fridays; last entry is thirty minutes before closing. The Institute of Contemporary Art is closed Mondays, and additionally closes on Patriots' Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. The Museum of Science is the reliable one: exhibit halls open daily, 9:00am to 5:00pm, with the Planetarium and Mugar Omni theaters running to 10:00pm on Friday and Saturday nights. So a Tuesday in Boston with young children is a Museum of Science day, an ICA day, or an outdoors day — not a Children's Museum day. Plan the week around that rather than discovering it at a locked door, and note that the Children's Museum recommends buying online because walk-up capacity is not guaranteed.

What is actually free, and what only looks free

A surprising amount of Boston costs nothing at all, with no pass, no timed entry and no reservation. The Boston Public Library's Central Library at 700 Boylston Street is open to anyone — Monday to Thursday 9 to 8, Friday and Saturday 9 to 5, Sunday 11 to 5 — and runs free art and architecture tours of a building that is worth seeing on its own terms; the courtyard is the best free sit-down in the Back Bay. Boston Public Market at 100 Hanover Street is an indoor, year-round hall of more than thirty New England producers, open daily from 8am, and is the most reliable warm room downtown on a bad-weather morning. The Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain is “Always Free”, open sunrise to sunset, with free street parking along the Arborway, and runs a Little Explorers program for three-to-five-year-olds. USS Constitution herself is free to board, Tuesday through Sunday 10am to 6pm, first come first served — she is an active-duty Navy ship, so expect a security screening; the museum beside her is a suggested donation, with a stated standard of $15 a person and a reduced tier of free to $10. Castle Island in South Boston is free, with free Fort Independence tours in season. What only looks free is the institutional stuff: the Museum of Science is $33 for an adult and $28 for a child three to eleven before you add a $6 theater ticket, and the New England Aquarium is $39.95 and $30.95 — with a $5-off New England resident discount that is blacked out on summer weekends and holidays.

A day that actually works

Here is the shape that survives contact with a five-year-old. Pick one indoor anchor and do it in the morning, when the queues are shortest and the child is fresh — the Museum of Science if you want two hours of genuine absorption, the Children's Museum if you want them to run. Buy that ticket in advance; both places recommend it, and the Aquarium says plainly that it “frequently sells out on weekends.” Eat outside afterwards: Boston Public Market, the Greenway lawns or the Common, all within a short walk of each other. Then make the afternoon free and outdoors — the Greenway Carousel at $4 a ride, the Public Garden, the Freedom Trail as far as anyone's legs last, or the Arboretum if you have a car and want space. Two things to slot in ahead of time. If the Aquarium is on the list, buy before you go and check whether the resident discount is blacked out on your date. And if you are visiting in autumn expecting the Swan Boats, do not: their own site says “Closed for the season. See you in April 2027.” If you have more than a day, the rest of our Boston corpus goes deeper — the museums with kids, the zoos and aquarium, the best parks near the city, the harbor islands, and the neighborhood festivals, and the seasonal guides for Halloween, pumpkin picking, Christmas and Patriots' Day.

Family events in Boston this week

Live from our catalog — 24 upcoming, refreshed weekly.

FAQ

Do kids ride the T for free in Boston?

Yes — “children age 11 and under ride the MBTA for free,” on rail and bus, with no stated limit on how many ride with one fare-paying adult. From age twelve everyone pays a regular fare: $2.40 on the subway, $1.70 on a local bus. Groups of ten or more children have to register the trip using the MBTA's field-trip form first.

What's free to do in Boston with kids?

The Boston Public Library at Copley and its free art and architecture tours, Boston Public Market, the Arnold Arboretum (“Always Free”, sunrise to sunset, free parking), Castle Island and its free Fort Independence tours in season, and boarding USS Constitution, which is free and first-come-first-served Tuesday to Sunday. The ICA is free for everyone 18 and under all the time, and free for all on Thursday evenings from 5 to 9.

Which Boston museums are closed midweek?

The Boston Children's Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts are both closed Tuesdays; the ICA is closed Mondays and also on Patriots' Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. The Museum of Science is the one that opens daily, 9am to 5pm. A Tuesday with young children is a Museum of Science day or an outdoors day.

How much is a Boston museum day for a family of four?

At the Museum of Science, two adults and two children aged three to eleven is $122 for exhibit halls alone, plus $6 a head for a Planetarium or Omni show. At the New England Aquarium it is $141.80 at the standard rate, or $121.80 with the New England resident discount — which is not available on summer weekends and holidays. The Boston Children's Museum charges $24 for everyone aged one and up, so $96, with under-ones free.

Can we ride the Swan Boats in the autumn?

No. The Swan Boats' own site says “Closed for the season. See you in April 2027.” They run roughly April to September, so a family arriving for leaf season finds an empty lagoon. The Public Garden itself is open and free year-round, and the Greenway Carousel a few minutes away runs daily 11am to 7pm at $4 a ride, with a 42-inch height requirement.

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Start with the T, because the T is the cheap part

The closed-day trap, and it catches three of the big four

What is actually free, and what only looks free

A day that actually works

Family events in Boston this week

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