Come to Boston. Park the Car. Open Newbury Is Waiting.
Come to Boston. Park the Car. Open Newbury Is Waiting.
One of the nicest ways to spend a fall weekend in Boston is to stay where you can walk out the hotel door and already be somewhere worth seeing.
Boston has always been a walking city.
I grew up here in a blue-collar family, and walking wasn't something we thought of as an activity. You walked because that was how you got somewhere. You walked to the store. You walked to the bus or the train. You walked from one neighborhood into another and sometimes much farther than you intended because there was always something around the next corner.
That is still one of the things I love most about Boston.
And on a handful of Sundays this fall, one of the city's best-known streets becomes an especially good place to remember it.
Open Newbury Is Back for Fall
On Open Newbury Sundays, Newbury Street closes to vehicle traffic from Berkeley Street all the way to Massachusetts Avenue. For eight blocks and about a mile, the street belongs largely to people instead of cars.
The remaining 2026 dates are:
September 6
September 13
September 20
October 11
Newbury Street is car-free from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
If you've only experienced Newbury Street on an ordinary day, it feels different without the traffic. You aren't confined to a sidewalk while cars crawl alongside you. People spread out. They stop. They look in windows. They eat. They talk. Businesses spill toward the street.
You get to see the Back Bay instead of simply moving through it.
This Is the Boston Weekend I Would Plan
If you're coming into Boston for a weekend, particularly in September or October, I'd seriously consider staying in the Back Bay and leaving the car alone.
Boston is not a city where a visitor needs to spend the weekend driving from attraction to attraction. In fact, doing that can make the trip harder than it needs to be.
Stay in the right place and you can walk out the door in the morning, have coffee, wander Newbury Street, cross over to Commonwealth Avenue, head toward the Public Garden and Boston Common, continue toward Beacon Hill and downtown, and take the T when your feet finally tell you they've had enough.
That's a pretty good day in Boston.
And you haven't spent half of it looking for parking.
Stay Close Enough to Walk
This is where location really matters.
If Open Newbury is part of your weekend, look for a hotel in the Back Bay around Newbury Street, Copley Square, the Public Garden or nearby. There are accommodations at many different price points throughout the area, and a map makes much more sense than my simply handing you a list of hotel names.
Use the map below to explore places to stay around Newbury Street and the Back Bay.
Zoom in and look at the relationship between the hotel and the places you want to visit. In Boston, a few blocks can make a real difference in how much of the city you can enjoy on foot.
Don't Bring the Car Just Because You Have One
There are certainly times when a car is useful in Massachusetts. If you're combining Boston with Cape Cod, the Berkshires, New Hampshire or another part of New England, that's a different trip.
But for Boston itself, think twice.
The City recommends public transportation for Open Newbury. Arlington, Copley and Hynes stations on the Green Line all serve the area, and Back Bay Station provides Orange Line, Commuter Rail and Amtrak service. There are also Bluebikes stations nearby.
If you're arriving by train or plane and staying in Boston, you may discover that the easiest parking decision is not needing to make one at all.
Make a Day of It
Don't treat Open Newbury like an event you have to rush through.
Start at one end and wander.
Stop for lunch. Look at the architecture above the storefronts instead of only looking into the storefronts. Take one of the side streets over to Commonwealth Avenue. Walk through the Public Garden. Sit down for a while.
Boston rewards people who wander a little.
That's something that can get lost when we reduce travel to lists of attractions that have to be checked off before we go home.
You don't need to see everything.
Sometimes a good trip is simply staying in a part of the city you like and actually spending time there.
There Is Something Different About a Street Without Cars
Open Newbury also gives us a glimpse of something I think Boston could use more often.
Take the cars away for a few hours and suddenly you notice how much space they normally occupy.
Children have more room. Older people have more room. Couples aren't squeezing past one another on the sidewalk. People stop without feeling as though they're blocking everybody behind them.
The street becomes a place rather than simply a route.
Boston has been wrestling with serious questions about pedestrian and cyclist safety, and the city has committed itself through Vision Zero to eliminating fatal and severe traffic crashes. A Sunday afternoon on Newbury Street isn't going to solve that problem.
But it does let us experience what happens when, for a few hours, we design a piece of the city around the people who are actually in it.
I think that's worth paying attention to.
Come in September. Come Back in October.
If you're close enough for a spontaneous trip, Open Newbury is happening September 6, 13 and 20.
But I'm also thinking about October 11.
October in Boston can be wonderful. The air changes, the leaves start changing with it, and the city feels different from summer. If you've been thinking about a fall weekend in Boston, this gives you one more reason to put a date on the calendar.
Find somewhere comfortable to stay.
Bring good walking shoes.
And for once, don't worry about where you're going to park.
We'll make room for you.
More Boston From GoBoston
I started GoBoston because after all these years, I still find things about this city worth talking about — the history, the neighborhoods, the strange stories, the places we take for granted and the things that keep changing.
For more of those stories, join me at GoBoston on Substack.
And if you're planning a visit, stick around GoBoston.com. There's a lot more Boston to explore.
Sources
City of Boston, Open Newbury Street
City of Boston, 2026 Open Newbury Schedule
City of Boston, Vision Zero
City of Boston Transportation Department