One Month, One Neighborhood at a Time: A Summer in Boston

A month, a coffee, and the art of romanticizing a city that only lets you love it in the warm months.

I had one month in Boston before I left for my summer internship in DC. One month where I didn't have anywhere urgent to be, where the days were long and the city was golden, and where I developed what I can only describe as a method.

Every morning, I would pick a neighborhood. I'd get myself a coffee. And I would romanticize it.

It sounds simple because it is. But there's something about Boston in the summer– the way people spill out onto stoops and patios and grassy riverbanks like they've been starved of sunlight for eight months (they have)-- that makes the whole city feel like it's in on something. Like everyone agreed, collectively, that this warmth is borrowed and precious and worth celebrating.

For a city that's cold for eight months of the year, people really know how to celebrate when it's finally warm.

If you find yourself with a stretch of summer days in Boston and no fixed agenda, here's how I spent mine.

The Formula

It goes like this: choose a neighborhood you haven't really explored. Walk to a coffee shop, not a chain, ideally something with mismatched chairs and good light. Sit for a moment. Then walk.

Don't make a list of things to see. Don't consult a "top 10 things to do in Boston" article. Just walk and notice. Eavesdrop on the city. Let yourself want things: an apartment with a porch, a life that looks like this one does on a Tuesday afternoon.

This is the whole method. It requires nothing except time, which is the one thing a summer in a city can give you if you let it.

The Neighborhoods Worth Romanticizing

Seaport, my favorite

Seaport is the one I keep coming back to mentally. It has that particular summer energy of a neighborhood that knows it's been discovered but hasn't quite decided how to feel about it: all glass buildings and waterfront terraces and people walking slowly in sunglasses. Go on a weekday if you can. Get something iced. Sit near the water and watch the boats. Let yourself feel like you live somewhere that matters.

MIT + the Charles River + Beacon Hill Café

This was a day I strung together almost accidentally. I ended up near MIT, walked along the Charles (which deserves its own essay, honestly, the way the river just sits there being wide and calm while everyone rows and runs and picnics around it) and eventually found my way to Beacon Hill Café. The café is the kind of place that feels like it was designed to make you stay longer than you planned. I did. I recommend it.

The walk from campus to Davis Square

I used to take the shuttle to Davis. One day I didn't, and it changed the way I saw Somerville. When you walk, you move through the residential streets, the ones lined with old houses and careful gardens and porches with chairs on them. You start doing the thing where you slow down in front of houses you like and quietly imagine your life inside them. The house with the blue door. The one with the overgrown roses. The corner one with the big windows.

Walk to Davis. It takes longer. Do it anyway.

Things That Are Just Better in Summer

Kayaking. The city looks completely different from the water. Smaller and larger at the same time. You paddle past things you'd never notice walking: bridges, back gardens, the undersides of things. If you haven't done this, it should be on the list.

The Esplanade. On a warm evening, the Charles River Esplanade fills with joggers and families and people lying in the grass reading books they may or may not actually be reading. It is one of those places that reminds you cities can be genuinely, plainly lovely. 

Eating outside anywhere. Boston has plenty of outdoor dining. In the summer, it earns it. People sit at these tables like they're on vacation. Maybe they are.

On Leaving

There's something about knowing you're going to leave that sharpens your attention. I was heading to DC, which I was excited about, but it meant the month in Boston had a shape to it: a beginning, a middle, an end I could see coming. I think that's why I was so deliberate about the walks, the neighborhoods, the coffees.

A month is a good amount of time. Long enough to find your spots, to have a regular order somewhere, to feel the city become slightly yours. Short enough that you never stop noticing it.

Slow down. Pick a direction. Buy the coffee. Let yourself fall a little bit in love with it.

Boston in the summer is a city in the middle of a celebration. You're invited. You just have to show up and wander.