The holidays are the week a hotel room is least useful
A holiday trip is almost never one person. It is a family, or several of them, and a hotel answers that by selling you three rooms on two floors and a breakfast buffet that closes at ten.
The two things you actually need over the holidays are the two things a hotel room does not have: a kitchen and a table. Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day are the days when restaurants across Boston are closed or booked solid months out, and takeaway is thin on the ground. A whole apartment gives you a full kitchen, a dining table everyone fits around, a living room to sit in afterwards, and in-unit laundry for a long stay — all of it behind your own front door, with no shared hallways and no front desk.
New Year's Eve, and why you do not want to be moving a car
Boston does New Year's Eve as First Night, a free city-wide festival that has run since 1976 — ice sculptures around Copley Square, performances through the afternoon and evening, an early fireworks display over Boston Common for families who are not staying up, and fireworks over the harbour at midnight.
It is a wonderful night and a miserable one to drive into. Streets close, garages fill and price up, and everyone leaves at the same moment. The sensible version is to leave the car where you are staying, take the T in, and come back to somewhere you can all sit down together afterwards. One of our guests did exactly that last New Year's: a group of ten, out for the evening, back for the ball drop.
Every apartment has its own free off-street parking, so the car sits somewhere safe all night and costs you nothing.
Thanksgiving and Christmas
Most Thanksgiving travel into Boston is people coming to see family, and the family they are seeing does not have the room. That is the most common booking we take all year, and we wrote about it properly in staying near family in Boston — close enough for the whole day together, far enough that everyone sleeps. Plymouth, where the story starts, is about forty miles south of us and runs its own Thanksgiving parade the weekend before.
December brings the tree lighting on Boston Common, the lights at Faneuil Hall, and the Nutcracker downtown. School holidays mean the booking is usually several nights rather than one, and the nightly rate drops as the stay gets longer.
Winter parking is the part people forget
Boston declares snow emergencies, and when it does, parked cars on posted streets get ticketed and towed. Visitors find this out the hard way, usually at seven in the morning on a day they had plans.
Every one of our apartments has its own off-street space, included. No resident permit, no circling the block in a storm, no tow lot. The apartments have proper heating, and the kitchen and laundry are yours for the whole stay — which is what makes a long winter booking comfortable rather than something to endure.
Apartments that suit this trip
7 Bernard Street, Apt 7B2View ApartmentFree cancellation — 100% refund any time before check-in
9 Bernard Street, Apt 9B2View ApartmentFree cancellation — 100% refund any time before check-in
9 Warner Street, Apt 9W2View ApartmentFree cancellation — 100% refund any time before check-in
17 Ellis Street, Apt 2View ApartmentFree cancellation — 100% refund any time before check-in
19 Ellis Street, Apt 3View ApartmentFree cancellation — 100% refund any time before check-in
42 Glenway StreetView ApartmentFree cancellation — 100% refund any time before check-in
Absolutely stunning home. We celebrated New Year’s Eve at the garden and came back here for the ball drop. It was perfect for our group of 10! Cute little touches and the place is decorated wonderfully. Would 100% stay here again!!— verified guest review
Common questions
- Can we book for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's Eve?
- Yes, and those dates are open now. Put your dates into the calendar on this page and it will show you what is free and what it costs for those exact nights.
- Is the kitchen good enough to cook a holiday meal?
- It is a full kitchen - oven, hob, fridge and freezer, and the pots, pans and crockery to use them. Guests cook Thanksgiving dinner in these apartments every year.
- What happens with parking if it snows?
- Nothing. Your space is off-street and included, so a Boston snow emergency and its towing does not touch you. That is not true of street parking anywhere in the city.
- How many of us can stay in one apartment?
- Up to 10 in a single apartment on one booking, depending on which one you take. The whole apartment is yours - your own front door, kitchen and laundry, nobody else in the property.
Coming to Boston for something else?
- All 19 apartmentsEvery whole apartment we let, across Dorchester and Hyde Park
- Red Sox & Fenway Park
- Gillette Stadium events
- Coming to Boston for treatment
- Boston hospital stays
- Graduation weekend
- Concerts & arena shows
- Salem in October
- Where to stay in Boston
- Near Boston Medical Center
- Harvard & MIT visits
- Wedding weekends
- Conventions & trade shows
- Marathon weekend
- Visiting family
- Hyde Park