Boston

Is price an issue? Hotels in Boston are very expensive. The nicest hotel within walking distance to Fenway is Hotel Commonwealth. The Westin and Taj are the nicest hotels. If you need something less expensive there's a Holiday Inn in Brookline where the T takes you right by Fenway.

When I'm footing the bill, I use hotel points.  I'm a Marriott man.  I have stayed at both the Marriott Copley Plaza and the Courtyard Copley Plaza iwthin the last couple years.  The are not too far to walk, and I've never had issues at either.  Enjoy!

Westin Copley Plaza...you can walk to the game and it's a very nice place to stay. We got a room there from Hotwire for a really good deal last summer.

Wow, what a coincidence.  My 2015 kid will be doing a summer engineering program at BU (I hope) and I'm thinking of flying out, picking him up, taking in a game at Fenway, and visiting a few colleges.   I use Hilton points and I was just looking the Hilton Back Bay, which looks pretty close, and the Hampton Inn Cambridge, which is not so close but a lot cheaper.

Sounds like a great idea!  You'll have a blast.  

I lived around the corner from Fenway for many years (long before World Series trophies and the accompanying consecutive sellout records).  Fenway is located in Kenmore Square which can be a bit chaotic on a game day and because of its close proximity to about a dozen colleges.  If you do want to stay that close, there is a cool spot across from Fenway called the Commonwealth Hotel,  Here's a link to a story on the hotel:  http://www.bostonglobe.com/spo...0G0ORd8pL/story.html

Otherwise I' recommend the Back Bay which is about a 20 minute walk or a couple of stops on the MBTA.  They have the usual chains including Hilton, Sheraton and the Marriott Copley Sq which I believe still has a ticket/room package.

By the way, single game tickets went on sale last Saturday... in light of the latest World Series euphoria, I'd make sure I got tickets ASAP.

Enjoy with your son... it's a regular tradition for me and my 2015 even though we live in Colorado!

wow thanks for the ideas....

Make sure you go eat in the north end, best Italian food anywhere on earth....except for Italy of course.

Given the nature of access to Sox tickets two names to remember are AceTicket and Stub Hub. If you are willing to play chicken with game time you can usually get good last minute deals. About one thousand top of centerfield bleacher seats go on sale ninety minutes before game time except major games. You have to get in line an hour early. One time I got in line and asked for the best seats available. I got two six rows behind the plate the Orioles returned (at face value).

DO NOT try to drive to the game. Driving in Boston is like playing bumper cars. Drivers are very aggressive. There's no place to park when you get there.

Boston is one of my favorite cities!  

My suggestion would be to stay closer to downtown and take the T to Fenway.  If you are not using points, one of the best kept secrets is the John Jeffries House, located at the bottom of Beacon Hill right on the Charles River and across from a T stop.  Stayed there several nights years ago on our family trip in New England.  http://www.johnjeffrieshouse.com/

Other tips:

Take the Fenway tour.  The tour is wonderful and you get to sit on the Green Monster.  

Get your baseball tickets as early as possible.  Boston is the only place where I have had to pay double face value for tickets, and they were out by Pesky's Pole.  Watch out for "partial view" tickets.   Our tickets were not partial views, but there was a pole right between home plate and the mound.  I took that seat and swayed back and forth on every pitch.  All part of the charm.

If you want to check out Harvard without taking an admissions tour, an alternative is the "Unofficial Hahvahd Tour", where the student tour guides have to "audition" for the job. You get lots of "scoop" that they won't share on the official tour.

A definite "do" is Mike's Pastry Shop in the North End.  THE BEST CANNOLI'S EVER!

RJM is most correct:  Do not drive.  The T can get you almost anywhere.  If you are flying in, don't even rent a car.

Son and I stayed at Hotel Commonwealth a few years ago during a first time trip to Boston... was ideal. Fenway is right around the corner and we walked to all sorts of cool areas from hotel as well. Price was ~$350 a night... don't know the going rates, but didn't seem like a huge uptick over other options especially given the proximity to Fenway. The big bonus was that we stumbled into JD Drew in the elevator... Signed son's hat. Son also ended up catching a third out ball tossed from Youkillis playing first... that weekend was one of those Hollywood baseball experiences... Fenway lived up to all billing. 

based on what I'm seeing, Green Monster seats are probably out of the question at this point.  I think we'll see three games, I was trying to get one game on the GM.  any ideas?  plenty of other options.

Stay a lot in Boston.  Wife on her way to team kickoff dinner right now.  Son also played in the NECBL last Summer.

Hotel Commonwealth is nice as others have noted.

There's a few others that we stay at and like very much:

- Four Seasons on Boylston across from the Public Garden / Common.  We walked to Fenway (~2 miles) from here in June.  But we like to walk!

- XV Beacon (just off the Common near the Statehouse)

- Mandarin Oriental on Boylston (~1 mile from Fenway)

Well said on all accounts keewart and RJM.  Great tour, great cannoli's, and never ever rent a car in Boston unless it already has dents.  I loved the tour and took one of my favorite all- time-favorite pictures there.  Fenway Park is heaven on earth and just as old.

If money is no option here's a sweet package for Green Monster Seats!  http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/b...monster_roadtrip.jsp

Otherwise, I would suggest keeping an eye on the secondary market.  The Standing Room Monster tickets aren't bad at all ... you essentially stand at a bar level railing/table and look right down over the seats.  No obstructions or anything (they don't overcrowd it like other SRO areas at Fenway), and usually tix are about half the price of the seats.  Another cool area is the Right Field Rooftop Box area which has unobstructed tables and stools on top of the stadium.

TOURIST ALERT! TOURIST ALERT! Mike's Pastry LOL! Enjoy the line. The people across the street laughing at you are locals.

Is this the one across the street?!  May have to the next time I am there!

http://www.modernpastry.com/

You don't need a car. Boston is a small city. You can walk from Fenway to the North End. From Kenmore Square walk down Newbury Street to Boston Public Gardens. Walk through the Gardens and Boston Common. On the other side of the Common are cemeteries where famous people from the American Revolution are buried. Proceed on to Fanueil Hall (Revolutionary War Museum) and Quincy Market (food mall). The Farmer's Market is just past Quincy Market. The North End is across the park. Most of the Italian restaurants are on Hanover St. If you stay in Boston the T Green Line B goes to Boston College. Its about a three and a half mile cab ride from Kenmore Square.

Unless Mike's is empty (weekdays off season) I go to Maria's. When you walk across the park towards Hanover Street it's to the left. The Modern is the one you're thinking of. I've never been there.

I took my family to Fenway 3 years ago and had a great time. We stayed in Burlington ,which is northwest of Boston on I95,drove 20 minutes down to the Riverside stop(I95, I90 intersection)on the green T line, and took the train into Kenmore square about a block from Fenway.No parking hassles and the Riverside stop is in a nice neighborhood away from crowded Boston. Most downtown hotels charge for parking and any lot close to Fenway is at least $40 bucks.

Speaking of Boston tickets, any secrets on how to get spring training tickets without paying the 100-300% markup to the third party vendors. Will be in town on the 2nd and 23rd.

I've never gone to Sox spring training. But I'm guessing the best way to get reasonably priced tickets, just like the regular season is play chicken with game time with the ticket agencies. Before that try to buy one off the street. Sometimes you can find people just trying to get rid of a ticket at face value.

It's been two years since we've been to Ft Myers for ST but have been a few different years over the past 5-6... Always got Sox tix either from the ticket window or else from scalpers on the street at face value. Usually caught a game at Twins facility in Ft Myers too, you can get pretty open access to the practice fields and intra-squads in addition to the stadium game there.

SFGiants spring tickets are very hard to come by.  Besides waiting for the game to start and then seeing what the scalpers have left, I've used these two strategies successfully:

1- buy tickets for away games.  These are much easier to get.

2- hit the team website THE MINUTE tickets go on sale.  It can really help get through the MLB ticket website if you have dual monitors or one very large one; then you can open a bunch of browser windows simultaneously, which helps you get through.