Massachusetts, United States: Towns to Explore on Foot

Things to do in Massachusetts range from exploring Boston’s revolutionary history and Salem’s maritime heritage to discovering Atlantic coast towns, wooded landscapes, and places shaped by American literature. Known as the Bay State, Massachusetts combines a long Indigenous and colonial history with major cities, universities, museums, and a varied coastline. Neywo offers free audio guides for 6 cities in Massachusetts, with 238 narrated places in total and 13 walking tours.

What to see and do in Massachusetts

Massachusetts is a relatively small state, but its landscapes and communities are remarkably varied. The Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine border its eastern edge, while large bays, forests, inland hills, and rural areas create a succession of different settings. More than a quarter of the state is water, and forests cover around 62 percent of its area.

Explore Boston, the Cradle of Liberty

Boston is the capital of Massachusetts and its cultural and financial center. It also played a central role in the movement for independence from Great Britain, earning the nickname “Cradle of Liberty” for its political agitation.

The city is one of the best places to begin understanding the state’s history and public life. Neywo’s Boston audio guide includes 87 narrated places, among them the USS Constitution, the USS Constitution Museum, Bunker Hill Monument, and the Boston Marathon.

Greater Boston is also New England’s largest metropolitan area and an important center for academia and research. Its influence reflects Massachusetts’s long connection with education, science, and public debate.

Discover Salem’s maritime and cultural history

Salem was one of the settlements established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 1600s. Its history is closely connected with the sea, trade, and the changing story of colonial Massachusetts.

The city’s narrated places include Salem Maritime National Historical Park, the House of the Seven Gables, Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, and the Peabody Essex Museum. Explore the city with the Salem, Massachusetts audio guide, which covers 12 narrated places.

Visit the coast at Falmouth

Falmouth offers a different view of Massachusetts, shaped by the Atlantic coastline and maritime landmarks. Its notable places include Nobska Light, the Falmouth Road Race, Falmouth Museums on the Green, and Woods Hole Historical Museum.

The town has 19 narrated places on Neywo. The Falmouth audio guide is a way to connect its coastal setting with local history and community traditions.

Experience Provincetown at the edge of the Cape

Provincetown is another coastal destination with a compact group of places to discover. Its narrated sites include Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving Station, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Race Point Light, and Wood End Light.

The Provincetown audio guide covers 6 narrated places, bringing together the town’s maritime landmarks and artistic life.

See Rockport’s historic places

Rockport adds another perspective on Massachusetts’s coastal communities. Neywo’s coverage includes 15 narrated places, with Fulton Mansion State Historic Site, George W. Fulton Mansion, Fulton Mansion, and Memorial Park among the highlighted sites.

The Rockport audio guide helps place these landmarks within the town’s local history as you move between them.

Discover Worcester’s museums and civic buildings

Worcester is one of Massachusetts’s major cities and has the largest number of narrated places on Neywo in the state: 99 in total. Its highlights include Salisbury Mansion and Store, Mechanics Hall, Union Congregational Church, and Worcester Art Museum.

The Worcester audio guide is especially useful for exploring the city’s architecture, institutions, and cultural heritage.

A state shaped by Indigenous history, colonization, and change

The name Massachusetts is rooted in the Massachusett, or Muhsachuweesut, who lived in the region before English colonization. They were one of several Algonquian-speaking peoples in the area, alongside the Wampanoag and Nipmuc. The name is connected with a Wôpanâak word translated in different ways, including “near the great hill” and “by the blue hills.” These hills include Great Blue Hill, on the boundary of Milton and Canton.

English colonization rapidly transformed the region. The Pilgrims founded Plymouth Colony in 1620, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony established settlements in Boston and Salem a decade later. European colonists also brought devastating epidemics, including smallpox, measles, and influenza.

The state later moved from agriculture, fishing, and trade into manufacturing during the Industrial Revolution. In time, its economy shifted again toward services, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, engineering, and higher education. Massachusetts is now home to more than seven million people, with Boston, Worcester, Springfield, and Cambridge among its major cities.

Literature, education, and public life

Education and writing are central to the cultural identity of Massachusetts. In 1647, it became the first state in North America to require municipalities to appoint a teacher or establish a grammar school. Nineteenth-century reforms associated with Horace Mann helped lay the groundwork for universal public education.

Massachusetts was also an important setting for Transcendentalism, a movement that emphasized intuition, individuality, emotion, and a deeper connection with nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston and later associated with Concord, expressed these ideas in Nature. Henry David Thoreau wrote about a year spent in a small cabin near Walden Pond in Walden.

The state has also been home to or strongly associated with Louisa May Alcott, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and Herman Melville. Their work forms part of a literary tradition that remains closely tied to Massachusetts’s landscapes and communities.

Plan your Massachusetts visit with Neywo

Neywo provides free audio guides for 6 cities in Massachusetts, with 238 narrated places in total and 13 walking tours. Narration is available in 11 languages. Each story plays as you reach the place, at your own pace: there is no group and no schedule.

Download Neywo and explore Massachusetts while the app tells the story of each place as you arrive. You can choose among Boston, Falmouth, Provincetown, Rockport, Salem, and Worcester, then continue discovering the wider United States with the same self-guided approach.