Frank's Christian Thoughts: Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza

Saturday, 1 November 2025

Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza - Part 46.

Arrival in Boston, Massachusetts.

After nine days spent in New York City, the day I vacated the hostel, instead of heading to the airport, I headed for the Port Authority Bus Station on 42nd Street. I boarded a Greyhound Americruiser to Boston, Massachusetts, where I was to spend the next five days.

Boston, 1998, was to be my final stop, not only in the USA, but as a lone overseas backpacker. However, for hostelling, my final YHA hostel was the one in Keswick, Cumbria, in the summer of 1999, marking the end of my lone backpacking career altogether. This was after hiking across the Lake District National Park to Keswick from Kendall.

But while I was staying in Boston, I never considered that my life was soon to change. This is the reason why my career as a lone backpacker was due to end. As already mentioned several weeks ago, even before I flew out to Singapore, then onward to Australia in 1997, I was watched by a female teenager who lived with her parents about a mile from my apartment, and we were destined to wed. But, at the time, I was totally unaware of that. By the time I arrived in Boston, I was still unaware of her attention. This trip to New York and Boston was meant to escape the 1998 FIFA World Cup and the group of English football fans in my church who idolised their national football team.

I stayed at the HI-AYH Boston City Hostel. It was smaller than the New York equivalent, but had far better equipment for self-catering. Its members' kitchen was larger, with all the necessary utilities. It matched the standards of an ideal backpackers' homestay. However, during a quiet moment, I was drumming my fingers on the table while I was drawing up plans for a second Round-the-World backpacking trip, to fly out around 2000 or 2001. This time, I would substitute Singapore with South Africa. As far as I could see at the time, I was to travel until I reached old age, and build a massive photo library I would eventually leave behind the moment I stepped off this planet.

And so, in my final days as a singleton, I arrived in Boston, Massachusetts. Being the closest city to the UK than the rest of the States, afterwards, I felt that this was a good way of saying goodbye to America.

Boston is quite a different city from New York. It is a smaller city than Manhattan and more sedate. The whole history of the USA, from being a British colony to the battle for independence, is contained in central Boston. There are 16 nationally significant sites, all connected by a line of red bricks or paint, known as the Freedom Trail. It's only 2.5 miles long, and I completed the trail easily within a day, although I spent more time inside Faneuil Hall and toured on board the ship, USS Constitution. Also, since the city was originally planned by British colonialists, the street layout in Central Boston is irregular, but consolidates more to a symmetrical grid further out, especially south and westwards.

The Freedom Trail passes 16 sites, which I refer to as stations. Each of these sites is either a historic building, a church, or a monument to commemorate an event. However, during the walk, I missed out on the site of the Boston Massacre. This is station 10, and is marked by a circular stonework embedded in the sidewalk. For me, it was easily mistaken for a manhole cover; I must have walked over it or passed by at close range. Therefore, for this album, I have included a stock photo, which is at the correct position before Faneuil Hall.

Anyone visiting Boston at present (2025) would see a different city from the one I was familiar with in 1998. This is due to the Interstate 93 Highway, which was, back then, raised on a flyover passing over the city skyline, thus spoiling the view and the city's historical perspective. But since then, a megaproject has redirected the highway underground via the O'Neill Tunnel, and where the flyover stood, the site consists of a chain of gardens and greenery. This makes Boston a far more handsome city now than it was in 1998.

The Charles River winds its way north of the city centre before opening out into the Atlantic Ocean. It is at the harbour front where the famed Boston Tea Party occurred in 1773, sparking the American Revolution against British rule with its high taxes, which led to American Independence and the initiation of its first President, George Washington. The 16 stations of the Freedom Trail have either a direct or an indirect connection with the 1773 Revolution. The USS Constitution, for example, a warship which earned the nickname Old Ironsides, despite its wooden hull, single-handedly defeated the British Navy when their cannon balls failed to penetrate the Constitution's hull.

The USS Constitution, Boston, 1998.

While I was visiting, I compared the USS Constitution with our own HMS Victory, a British warship that defeated the Spanish and French Naval forces at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, leading to the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson while he was still on board. While our vessel is dry-docked in Portsmouth, visitors are free to roam around the ship at leisure, with escorted groups as an optional extra. But in 1998, access to the Constitution was by ranger-led escorted tours only. I admit my feeling of unease as I was led with the rest of the group. Then, after the tour was over, I sneaked off alone to one of the interior decks to take a better, more thorough look. I was then caught by the escort and asked to leave the ship.

Perhaps I wasn't the only one who felt unease in being led. Maybe there were far more tourists who felt the same way I did. Who knows. But at present, according to a variety of reviews on the website Tripadvisor, tourists are now free to roam around the ship at leisure, but now have to pass through an airport-style security check before boarding. In my day, there were no security checks.

The two city parks in Boston have very sophisticated names - the Public Garden and the adjoining Boston Common. Public Garden has a large, elongated lake, on which two Swan Cruisers ply, carrying passengers around the lake. Crossing the lake at its narrowest section is a public footbridge. There was also what looked like the remains of a Roman ruin. Realising that the Romans knew nothing of the American continent in their day, I quickly learned that the site was the remains of a 16th-century tavern.

In all, Boston remains very much an English-style city with an irregular street layout, yet packed with history, with the irony that the American Revolution was a war against the British Empire and its colonial rule across the Atlantic Ocean. Although Boston has similarities with Brooklyn, yet, it's very distinct from San Diego and other southwestern cities, which originated from the Spanish invasion, and hence, these cities retained their Spanish names, often after Spanish missionaries.

Click here for the Index linking to the main Biography, Weeks 113-116.

Photos of Boston, the Freedom Trail and its 16 Stations.

Boston city skyline.