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We run Spare Keys Stay ourselves, here in Boston. Questions before you book? Daryl answers personally.
Call or text 617-799-4558 [email protected]Registered with the City of Boston · STR-629372
Tours, interviews, move-in day
Hotels near Harvard Square and MIT sell out on visit weekends. Whole apartments 40 minutes by train from Harvard Square: kitchen, laundry, free parking.
Let us be straight with you: our apartments are in Dorchester and Hyde Park, not Harvard Square. If you want to walk to the Yard in four minutes, book in Cambridge and pay Cambridge prices for a room with no kitchen.
What we offer instead is a whole apartment for the kind of trip a campus visit actually is — two or three days, two to five people, early starts, and a great deal of walking. From our Dorchester apartments it is a 4-minute walk to the commuter rail at Talbot Avenue, then the Red Line from South Station: about 35 minutes to Kendall/MIT and 40 to Harvard Square. You get a kitchen, a washer and dryer, your own rooms, and somewhere to park the car you drove up in.
You would not choose us to be close to Harvard. You would choose us because a family of four in one apartment beats a family of four in two hotel rooms.
Interview mornings start early, and nobody wants to queue for a hotel breakfast before one. Move-in weekend means bulky bags, a car, and a run to the shops — all of which are easier from a driveway than from a garage with a height limit.
Parents' weekend and reunions run late. Coming back to your own front door beats coming back to a lobby.
And if you are doing the full circuit — Harvard, MIT, BU, Boston College, Northeastern, Tufts, Berklee, Simmons, Emerson — you are crossing the city anyway. A base with parking and a kitchen serves that better than a room beside any one campus.
You will not be walking to any of these from Dorchester or Hyde Park, so the useful question is which train, and whether it is one ride or two. Harvard and MIT are both on the Red Line, one change from the commuter rail at South Station — about 35 minutes to Kendall/MIT and 40 to Harvard Square, the easiest campus trip from here.
The rest are a second change, or a drive. Boston College, out in Chestnut Hill at the far end of the Green Line's slow B branch, is easiest by car: about 20-25 minutes from either neighbourhood outside rush hour. Every apartment has free parking, so driving is a real option, and out here you can actually leave the car somewhere.
| Campus | Nearest stop | Line |
|---|---|---|
| Harvard | Harvard Square | Red |
| MIT | Kendall/MIT | Red |
| Boston University | BU Central | Green B |
| Northeastern | Ruggles / Northeastern | Orange / Green E |
| Boston College | Boston College (end of the B branch) | Green B |
| Berklee | Hynes Convention Center | Green |
| Emerson | Boylston | Green |
| Simmons | Museum of Fine Arts | Green E |
| Tufts | Medford/Tufts | Green E |
Harvard's Family Weekend runs October 22 to 25. Harvard plays Princeton (October 24) and Columbia (November 7) at home, and this year's Harvard-Yale game is at Fenway Park on November 21.
Spacious place. Near the city. Full of kitchen equipment. Highly recommended.— verified guest review
Harvard and MIT are both on the Red Line. From our Dorchester apartments, walk 4 minutes to Talbot Avenue, take the commuter rail to South Station and change to the Red Line: about 35 minutes to Kendall/MIT and 40 to Harvard Square. That is the easiest campus trip from here; the others take another change or a drive.
Every apartment has free parking, so driving is a real option - and you can actually leave the car somewhere at the end of the day. Boston College, out in Chestnut Hill, is easiest by car: about 20 to 25 minutes from either neighbourhood outside rush hour.
Bulky bags, a car and a run to the shops are easier from a driveway than from a garage with a height limit, and nobody wants to queue for a hotel breakfast before an interview. Stays of any length book online - long enough for move-in week, not just the tour.
If the trip covers Harvard, MIT, BU, Boston College, Northeastern, Tufts, Berklee, Simmons or Emerson, you are crossing the city anyway. A base with parking and a kitchen serves that better than a room beside any one campus.
From our Dorchester apartments it is about 35 minutes by train to Kendall/MIT and 40 to Harvard Square: a 4-minute walk to Talbot Avenue, the commuter rail to South Station, then the Red Line. Whole apartments with a kitchen, laundry in most, and free parking.
