Since creating this blog in 2008 I have tried to keep it up to date as much as possible. There have been a few short city breaks missing, where I didn’t think that there was much to say, but my main trips – the ones where I think a blog might help people – were all there.
In addition, the blog from the month I spent in Namibia in 2002 with World Challenge Expeditions and was added a few years later from notes I made while travelling as it was the trip which really kickstarted my love of exploring the world into top gear.
But there has always been one trip missing from the site – my trip with a friend to visit New York City and Boston in 2008.
This trip was missing for a few reasons. The main ones being that I didn’t keep as thorough trip notes as usual due to how packed the trip was, and that those cities are visited so frequently that I wasn’t sure a blog would really help anybody.
However as part of the 2021 major site upgrades I decided that it was time to add both that trip – and others of note – both as a personal record and also to ensure that the site was as complete as possible.
This is a trip that I really enjoyed, even though I’m not normally a city break holiday sort of person. New York is one of those cities that’s just so iconic, and which has been seen in so many movies, that it was great to visit. And Boston has a great atmosphere which is why I didn’t mind going back for a third time.
Although, me being me, I did manage to sneak a few off the beaten path sights into the trip as well such as a tour of the gold vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
So I’m pleased to finally have the blog online should anybody be interested in reading it. And, so that this entry isn’t just text, here are a couple of photos from the trip.
I usually write my blog in the months following my trip, based on extensive diary notes, but due to both the elapsed time and the incompleteness of my notes the entries are a lot shorter than normal and some minor details may be missing.
Information about the places which we visited may not be accurate now too – for example, the replica Cheers Bar that we visited at Faneuil Hall in Boston has now sadly closed permanently due to COVID. But I captured the essence of the trip.
There are a few other trips which I’m going to try to add to the site before relaunch too – three conferences in Los Angeles in 2004, 2005, and 2006 and four trips to Spain from 2015 – 2020. Let’s see how that goes.
And, like all of the blogs which have been added some time afterwards, for the benefit of the robots which scan the internet, some of the sights that I saw include:
- New York City
- Manhattan
- Times Square
- United Nations
- Harlem
- Central Park
- Ground Zero
- New Jersey
- Brooklyn
- Trinity Church
- Boston
- Harvard University
- Cheers Bar
- Whale Watching
- Paul Revere’s House
- USS Constitution
And, so that we don’t finish this post with a boring list, here’s a cute photo of a Squirrel which I took in New York City.
