Boston By Foot

08/28/2026

We're grateful to and the for including Boston By Foot in this year's ! 🎉

Through early October, Boston students and their families can enjoy free walking tours that bring Boston's neighborhoods, landmarks, and history to life as part of the City's commemoration. We can't wait to welcome new explorers this fall!

See our full catalogue of tours at the link in our bio!

08/26/2026

Featured Tour!
Before Boston: Shawmut Peninsula through 1630
Sunday, August 30, 3PM

Explore 12,000 years of human activity on Shawmut Peninsula, the lands we now call Boston. Follow in the footsteps of the Native people who first walked here. Learn how they hunted and fished, and worked with clay and textiles. Uncover geological features and archaeological sites on and around Boston Common.

Learn more and register:

https://bostonbyfoot.org/tours/before-boston-shawmut-peninsula-through-1630/

08/26/2026

Featured Tour!
Art Deco in Boston's Financial District
Thursday, August 27, 5 PM, Sunday, August 30, 10 AM

Boston's greatest concentration of Art Deco is in the city's Financial District, where it can claim examples that rival New York's finest. The tour provides not only narrative on individual buildings and their architects, but also offers context and background on the design elements and influences of American Art Deco. Discover the downtown you often see, but rarely notice!

Learn more and register:

https://bostonbyfoot.org/tours/art-deco-in-boston-s-financial-district/

08/20/2026

New Tour! Free!
Eliot Burying Ground
Saturday. August 22, 10 AM, 11 AM, 12 PM, 1PM, 2PM

The Eliot Burying Ground has stood at the crossroads of Roxbury's history for nearly four centuries. From early Puritan settlers and Indigenous history to Roxbury's role in the American Revolution tour explores the people and events that shaped one of Boston's oldest neighborhoods. Learn about historical figues who shaped Roxbury. Explore extraordinary gravestones, tombs, and funerary art that reflect changing ideas about death, memory, religion, and social status across three centuries. Offered in collaboration with the City of Boston's Historic Burying Grounds Initiative.

Learn more and register:

https://bostonbyfoot.org/tours/eliot-burying-ground/

08/19/2026

How fitting that in the year Boston By Foot turns 50, our Executive Director, Sam Nelson has been named to Stay in Boston’s list of 50 People Who Shape Boston Hospitality!

For 50 years, Boston By Foot has helped tell Boston’s story by sharing the history, people, places, and ideas that have shaped the city and continue to shape it today. As Boston’s oldest volunteer-led walking tour organization, we’re honored to be recognized alongside so many people who help visitors and residents alike experience Boston in meaningful, memorable ways.

Of course, the real storytellers are our more than 200 volunteer guides, whose knowledge, curiosity, and enthusiasm make it possible for us to share Boston’s many stories every day.

Whether you’re visiting Boston or have called it home for years, there’s always more to discover. Find a tour or join us and become one of Boston’s storytellers at bostonbyfoot.org.

🔗https://www.stay-in-boston.com/the-50-people-who-shape-boston-hospitality

Fifty verified names behind Boston hospitality: hotel general managers, chefs, bartenders, architects, tourism chiefs and the writers who cover them.

08/17/2026

On our Black Voices: Writers for a 19th Century Revolution walking tour, discover the Black writers and thinkers who used their words to challenge injustice, confront slavery, and demand change.

Join us for this upcoming featured tour and discover a different side of Beacon Hill and Boston’s literary history.

August 20, 10am
August 31, 12pm
Sept 7, 11am
Sept 9, 1pm
Sept 15, 10am
Sept 18, 1pm

Learn more & register: bostonbyfoot.org/tours/black-voices-history/

08/14/2026

From Revolutionary history to neighborhood stories, our volunteer-led walking tours help visitors and locals alike discover the people, places, and moments that shaped Boston. Thank you to WCVB Channel 5 Boston for highlighting the passion of our incredible volunteer guides as we celebrate 50 years of exploring the city 'By Foot'.

From volunteer-led history walks to food tours in Roxbury, Dorchester and Jamaica Plain, these experiences show visitors a side of Boston they might otherwise miss

08/12/2026

Featured Tour!
Saturday, August 15, 11 AM
Boston’s Loyalists

We hear so much about the revolutionists, but this tour tells the story of Boston’s role in the lead-up to the American War of Independence from the perspective of those who remained loyal to the British crown. We’ll visit historic Boston landmarks like the Granary Burying Ground, King’s Chapel, Old South Meeting House and Marshall Street. Our guides will introduce you to Boston’s Loyalists, some whom are familiar, others lesser known. Expand your horizons! Learn about the Revolution from a sometimes overlooked perspective.

Learn more and register:

https://bostonbyfoot.org/tours/bostons-loyalists/

08/11/2026

Featured Tour!
Boston’s LGBTQ Past
Thursday, August 13th, 5PM, Saturday. August 15, 1:30PM

Explore Boston through the lens of its LGBTQ+ past on this engaging walking tour. From the hidden histories of the 18th century to the activism and community-building of the 20th and 21st, this tour traces the stories, individuals, spaces, and events that shaped q***r life in the city. You’ll hear about Bostonians who challenged gender norms, writers and artists who inspired new generations to oppose social mores, and the bars and clubs that served as incubators for Boston’s LGBTQ+ community and the burgeoning Gay Liberation Movement. .

Learn more and register:

https://bostonbyfoot.org/tours/bostons-lgbtq-past/

08/07/2026

Featured Tour!
Jewish Roxbury: A Walk Through Grove Hall and Elm Hill
Sunday, August 9, 2 PM

Explore the rich, complex history of Boston's Jewish community in Roxbury on this immersive walking tour. Spanning from 1900 until the early 1960s, this tour delves into the role of key institutions and explores daily life by looking at synagogues, homes, schools, and a bustling shopping district. We’ll also examine the unique intersection of Jewish and Black communities in the neighborhood, and the evolving social, economic, and cultural dynamics that shaped these vibrant neighborhoods.

Learn more and register:

https://bostonbyfoot.org/tours/jewish-roxbury/