17 Best Museums in Boston

"Housed in a former warehouse along the Fort Point channel, Boston Children’s Museum has three floors of experiential learning areas for kids and kids at heart. It's one of the biggest children’s museums in the world, with the permanent collection to prove it: Its holdings include some 25,000 items that range from ancient artifacts to natural history specimens, historic objects, and rare dolls. Most of the exhibits favor immersive, hands-on learning—don’t be surprised when you walk into a bubble-making room, the “Dinos in Space” area featuring two favorite kid subjects, or the “You, Me, We!” exhibit, which encourages families to connect with each other around questions of fairness in the world. Be sure to check out Martin’s Park, a public playground behind the museum that opened in June 2019, and the second-floor PlaySpace for the youngest kids (0-3), which reopened in February 2020 after a complete redo. (General admission tickets must be booked in advance for the three-hour morning or afternoon time slots; one-hours slots within your ticketed time can then be booked specifically for the PlaySpace.)" - Elizabeth Wellington, Andrew Sessa