Choose your Boston hotel carefully and you'll be able to walk to most of what you want to see and do, and take the MBTA subway, taxis and rideshare cars to reach the rest.

If you're not familiar with the city, read How to Find Your Way Around Boston.

Hotel Map with Prices

Use the handy Hotel Map below to see room rates, location, availability and facilities.

Prime Areas for Boston Hotels

Central Boston Hotels

Boston Common & Beacon Hill

Hotels around Boston Common and Beacon Hill allow you to walk to most sightseeing, as do hotels near Faneuil Hall Marketplace, and some in the Financial District. More...

Theater District

Hotels in the Theater District are perfect if you're coming to Boston for a performance, for Tufts Medical Center, Chinatown, and even for general sightseeing.

North Station

North Station hotels are convenient for Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins games and major entertainment events held in the TD Garden.

Faneuil Hall & Waterfront

Hotels near tear Faneuil Hall Marketplace, the Waterfront, and the New England Aquarium are great if you're going there, and/or on a Boston harbor cruise, and they're not far from the Beacon Hill hotels either.

Back Bay Hotels

Hotels in Back Bay are best for shopping at Copley Place, Prudential Center and Newbury Street, for events at the Hynes Convention Center.

Hotels near Symphony Hall are great for concert-going, (BSO, Jordan Hall, Berklee College, New England Conservatory) and visiting the Christian Science Center. More...

Hotels near the art museums are also near Northeastern University.

South Boston Seaport & BCEC Hotels

Hotels in the South Boston Seaport district east of Fort Point Channel and the train tracks, are convenient to South Station Transportation Center (Amtrak and MBTA Commuter Rail trains, and intercity buses); the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC); Black Flacon Cruise Terminal; Institute of Contemporary Art; the Children's Museum; and the tunnels to Logan International Airport.

Hotels in Cambridge

If you choose your Cambridge hotel carefully, you'll be able to stay in Cambridge and also get to Boston easily. More...

Hotels at Logan Airport

Central Boston hotels are only a few miles from Logan International Airport, but you've got to cross Boston harbor to get to them. If you want to stay at the airport, here are the hotels. More...

HI Boston Hostel

The 468-bed HI Boston Hostel at 19 Stuart Street (map) in Boston's Theater District, near Chinatown, is only a half mile (800 meters, 12 minutes' walk) from South Station and South Station Bus Terminal, and two blocks south of Boston Common—a great location for a historic building completely restored and modernized.

Nearest MBTA subway stations to the hostel are Boylston Street (Green Line) or Tufts Medical Center (Orange Line). More...

Tips for Saving Money

Visit Boston on a Weekend

First of all, if you want to stay right in the city center, by all means plan your visit for a weekend!

If you sign up for a two-night stay on Friday and Saturday, you may get your chosen hotel room for 30 to 35% less, plus a bottle of champagne, breakfast in bed, the morning's newspaper, free parking, or other such treats.

Arrange your itinerary to be in Boston only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. If you arrive here mid-week, go directly to Salem and the North Shore, or Lexington and Concord, to Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, or to Old Sturbridge Village.

Country inns and other accommodations in these "country" destinations are less crowded and less expensive during the week, more expensive and crowded on weekends.

Same-Day Reservations

It's always better to reserve your hotel in advance if possible, but if fate has left you driving toward Boston and needing a hotel room for that night, some moderate to expensive downtown Boston hotels routinely offer special prices to travelers calling frthe hotel directly for same-day reservations.

What's the catch? Well, like cheap airplane seats, these offers are based on availability of rooms, and if the hotel is pretty full, they might not grant you the discounted price because they feel they'll be able to rent the room at full price.

So if you want to be sure and stay in a particular hotel, or district of the city, you should reserve in advance.

Stay in a Hostel or Budget Hotel

They're hardly luxurious, sometimes you sleep in a dorm room and/or share a bathroom, but they bring down the cost of staying in Boston: hostels & budget lodgings. More...

A Word on Hotel Taxes

Massachusetts imposes a room occupancy exise tax of 5.7%; Boston levies a 2.75% convention center tax and a 6.5% room tax, so your hotel bill will be 14.95% higher than what the hotel charges you. Thus, if the hotel quotes you a room rate of $200, you'll actually pay at least $229.90.

It's a bummer! The hotels dislike these taxes as much as you do, but Boston is worth it. There's not much you can do about these taxes,—you don't vote here, after all—but I wanted to warn you to anticipate them.

Each hotel may also impose its own mysterious "service" and/or "facility" fees, whether you use any extra services or facilities, or not. It's simply bait-and-switch: offering you a low price to get your reservation, then charging you more...because they can. In the opinion of this travel writer, it ought to be illegal. Prices quoted should include all taxes, fees, charges, and tips, as in more progressive tourism destinations such as France.