Free Things to Do with Kids in Boston
Boston is an expensive place to entertain a child. A family of four at the Museum of Science is over $100 before parking. But a genuinely large share of the best stuff here costs nothing — and several of the paid museums have free windows that almost nobody outside the regulars seems to know about.
Here’s everything free worth your time, starting with the part that saves the most money.
The free windows at museums that normally charge
This is the section to screenshot. These are recurring, not one-offs.
Boston Children’s Museum — $1/person, Sundays 1–4pm. Normally $24/person. It is busy, it is worth it, and it is the single best deal in the city.
Harvard Museum of Natural History — free for MA residents, Sundays 9am–12pm and Wednesdays 3–5pm. Bring proof of residency.
ICA Boston — free Thursdays 5–9pm. Always free for under-18s, every day.
Museum of Fine Arts — pay-what-you-wish, third Thursdays after 5pm. Under-7s are always free.
Discovery Museum (Acton) — free First Fridays, 4:30–8pm, plus every Friday night in summer.
The Icon Museum (Clinton) — free the first Sunday of every month.
And three programs worth knowing about
Museums for All (EBT card): Museum of Science $3/person, Mapparium $2, deCordova free, Wheelock Family Theatre $5 tickets, and many others.
Boston Family Days: Boston K–12 students get in free at Franklin Park Zoo and the New England Aquarium on the first and second Sundays.
Library passes: your local library lends discounted or free passes to dozens of museums. Most parents never check. Start there before you buy any ticket.
Museums that are always free
Harvard Art Museums — Cambridge. Free for everyone, all the time.
MassArt Art Museum (MAAM) — Boston. Contemporary, weird, and free.
Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East — Cambridge.
Davis Museum — Wellesley College.
Rose Art Museum — Brandeis, Waltham.
Tufts University Art Galleries — Medford/Somerville.
Waterworks Museum — Brookline. Enormous Victorian pumping engines in a stone building. Better with kids than it sounds.
Scottish Rite Masonic Museum — Lexington.
Bunker Hill Museum — Charlestown.
Fuller Craft Museum — Brockton. Pay-what-you-can.
Minute Man National Historical Park Visitor Center — Lincoln.
Parks, trails, and nature
Arnold Arboretum — Jamaica Plain. 281 acres, always free, and the hill at the top is a sledding spot in winter.
Blue Hills Reservation — Milton/Canton. 7,000 acres of trails.
Middlesex Fells Reservation — Medford/Stoneham.
Boston Nature Center — Mattapan. Boardwalk trails through a meadow in the middle of the city.
Fresh Pond Reservation — Cambridge. Flat 2.25-mile loop, stroller-friendly.
Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge — Concord. Bring binoculars.
Acton Arboretum, Hemlock Gorge (Newton), Willard’s Woods (Lexington), Lone Tree Hill (Belmont), Mystic River Reservation — all free, all good for burning off an afternoon.
Free water play (summer)
Boston’s splash pads and wading pools are city-run and free. No tickets, no reservations.
Frog Pond Spray Pool — Boston Common.
Rose Kennedy Greenway Fountains — Downtown. Kids run straight through them.
Artesani Playground Wading Pool — Brighton.
North Point Park Spray Deck — Cambridge.
Beaver Brook Spray Deck — Belmont.
Ryan Wading Pool — Mattapan
Latta Brothers Pool — Somerville
Reilly Memorial Pool — Brighton.
Free beaches: Carson Beach (South Boston), Wollaston Beach (Quincy), Magazine Beach Park (Cambridge).
Farms and animals, free
Chip-In Farm — Bedford. Free petting barn with rabbits, goats, lambs, calves, chickens, and a barn cat. Bring hand sanitizer — no washing sink in the barn.
Codman Community Farms — Lincoln. Working heritage-breed farm, open dawn to dusk year-round. Cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens. Donations welcome.
Land’s Sake Farm — Weston. Free drop-in Open Farmyard sessions where kids brush and feed the goats and dig in the garden. One of the best free toddler outings anywhere near Boston.
Gore Place — Waltham. Grounds and farm are free to walk.
History, which Boston gives away
This is the city’s real free superpower. Most of the important stuff costs nothing to stand in front of.
The Freedom Trail — free to walk the whole 2.5 miles. Guided tours cost money; the red line on the sidewalk does not.
USS Constitution — Charlestown. Boarding the ship is free. (The museum next door suggests $15.)
Lexington Battle Green, Minute Man National Historical Park, Old North Bridge in Concord — all free.
Massachusetts State House — Beacon Hill. Free tours.
Boston Public Library, Copley — free, and the courtyard is a genuinely peaceful place to eat a sandwich with kids.
Faneuil Hall — free. Street performers outside, most days.
Harvard and MIT campuses — free to wander. Harvard runs free student-led tours.
Playgrounds worth a drive
Gronk Playground — Charlesbank, on the Esplanade. The best playground in the city, and free.
Millennium Park — West Roxbury. Huge open hilltop, big skies, good for kite weather.
Larz Anderson Park — Brookline. Best sledding hill in the area come winter.
The Lawn on D — Seaport. Glowing light-up swings. Free.
Kelleher Rose Garden — Fenway.
Libraries (more than books)
Boston Public Library, Copley — the children’s library is a destination in itself.
Cambridge Public Library — Main Branch. Preschool story time with crafts, 2nd and 4th Wednesdays at 11am. Arrive early.
Brookline Public Library — Coolidge Corner. Lapsit, Storytime, Playspace, Slime Lab, and a Pokemon League. Thursday storytime at 10:30am is popular enough to need tickets.
And one nearly-free extra: Kelly Outdoor Ice Rink in Jamaica Plain is free to skate — rentals are $3.
Want the full picture, paid options included? The 150+ Things to Do with Kids in the Boston Area guide has costs and ages on every entry. In berry season, the pick-your-own calendar tells you what’s ripe when.
And for the free events happening each week — festivals, library programs, one-off things you’d never hear about otherwise — subscribe to Boston Family Calendar. Every Wednesday, free.
see you out there fellow parents,
Dito from Boston Family Calendar
