The Boston Traveler

Today’s guest post comes from Mary Jo Manzanares, b5media’s Travel & Culture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.
Boston Duck Tours are a fun, family-friendly way to see the city the Paul Revere way: by both land and water.
You board a renovated WWII amphibious craft decked out with a fun name and your own ConDUCKtor who doubles as driver and tour guide. After sightseeing in downtown Boston, you plop off a ramp into the Charles River to enjoy the Beantown and Cambridge skylines from the water. At this point, children are allowed to take the wheel and “pilot” the …read more

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Today’s guest post is from Mary Jo Manzanares, b5media’s Travel & Culture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.
Have you noticed how the nights are getting just a little bit cooler? And in the mornings, there’s starting to be a little crispness in the air.
When the weather gets like this, I start thinking about the fall foliage, and how beautiful nature can be this time of year.
Word is that this year’s foliage New England foliage should be spectacular. The warm days and cool evenings are perfect conditions for dramatic color and foliage.
If you’re interested in planning a driving tour …read more

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I’ve probably mentioned before that as a staunch non-driver, I most often walk or take public transportation, or very rarely catch a cab, when it comes time to get from Point A to Point B locally.
Even so, it’s impossible to remain unaware of the problems — meaning the sky-high gas prices — that have been tormenting the many drivers in the United States who aren’t wealthy. Since I can’t imagine what a pain in the wallet it must be to drive a car these days if you don’t have a lot of disposable income to waste, reflexive curiosity makes …read more

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At times like the present, with gas prices reaching astronomical levels, I’m very thankful I don’t drive. Unlike me, however, there are millions of people across the United States growing increasingly frustrated over the rising cost of fueling their vehicles with required gasoline.
Governor Deval Patrick and his administration apparently feel constituents’ pain, and in response, they’ve established a new website specifically geared towards helping drivers in Massachusetts cope with soaring gas prices.
Titled Gas Tips, the website currently has six sections with links to timely information on:

Searching local gas prices to find the best bargain
Maximizing the amount of gas purchased …read more

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Take note if, like me, you enjoy spending the Fourth of July on the Longfellow Bridge that connects East Cambridge and Beacon Hill, watching the fireworks over the Charles along with hundreds of other spectators.
Urgent safety considerations forced state officials to take action this week when a Thursday inspection revealed a steel beam supporting one sidewalk requires immediate work. That discovery is in addition to previously known problems with deteriorated railroad ties, which urged MBTA officials to have Red Line subway conductors slow down substantially as they ride over the bridge on their normal route until replacements are completed.
As …read more

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Normally, I would post about a local Boston attraction today. But while looking for accompanying media, I came across interesting YouTube footage uploaded to the video-sharing website in December 2007.
Debatably titled Boston’s Deadliest Bike Messenger, the admittedly thrilling viewing material demonstrates numerous ways to get yourself — or someone else — in a fatal accident while riding a bicycle on the streets of Boston … or any other place for that matter.
There are rules of the road in Massachusetts that bike riders are supposed to follow just as much as drivers. If you plan to visit and use …read more

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Local NBC affiliate WHDH had an interesting report on the 11pm news broadcast last night. It was an undercover investigation that confirmed what many taxi-loving commuters probably already knew — some cab drivers like to make more money than they’re due by scamming what they hope are unsuspecting riders.
I personally prefer sticking with mass public transportation rather than cabs for this very reason. It’s appalling what too many cab drivers do just to get a few extra dollars, such as the ever-popular scam of deliberately making unnecessary detours to prolong the ride or avoiding shortcuts on side streets …read more

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Both visitors to and residents of Boston have something to get happy about these days as the MBTA spreads news about two commendable developments: the testing of free wireless Internet access on the commuter rail line and a record ten-year low in the violent crime rate on Massachusetts’ public transportation system.
In the first case, starting this Wednesday, the MBTA will make Wi-Fi service available on the Worcester/Framingham commuter line, one of the busiest lines in the commuter rail system. As a result, passengers will presumably have the ability to do just about anything they normally could on their Internet-ready …read more

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Whew! That was a close one! Amtrak workers are not going on strike!
Just about everyone who commutes into, out of, and within Boston on weekdays had one thing on their mind recently—the rapidly increasing likelihood that Amtrak employees would go on a nationwide strike come 12:01am on January 30.
If such a catastrophe occurred, the heavily used commuter rail system that lugs suburbanites in and out of metropolitan Boston via South Station—the main hub for Amtrak in the area—would become unavailable. Travelers forced to use the city’s public transportation routes as an alternative would then inevitably contribute to …read more

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Last Saturday in the post “Happy Birthday, Charlie!,” I wrote about the first birthday of Boston’s CharlieCard transit payment system. The innovative “smart card” contains an electronic chip that allows passengers to preload money and then tap their payment when boarding public transportation instead of swiping or inserting it. If a passenger has mastered the tapping routine, the newer process can speed boarding times substantially (and if they haven’t, settle in for a brain-numbing wait while they and their ten — it’s always ten, minimum — clueless companions each attempt to learn on the fly).
Anyway… While …read more

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