Watch out Boston….Here I come

We “descend” on Boston at 9 am next Wednesday

When I started planning this trip in January, I had hoped to document and share any tools or tricks that I had learned to make traveling with MS easier, but then…..well you know, LIFE HAPPENED….. The last couple of months have been filled with so many life changing events, that I could barely make it through the present let alone write about it.

The week after I purchased our Airfare to Boston, I started investigating whether or not to rent a car while we were there.  The AAA  guide book I ordered says, and I quote….

Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed, “We say the cows laid out Boston.  Well, there are worse surveyors.”  Emerson, of course, never had to drive through the city.  Downtown- occupying a peninsula surrounded by the Charles River, Boston Inner Harbor and Fort Point Channel- is a challenging place for residents, let alone visitors, to negotiate by vehicle.  Furthermore, Boston drivers are legendary for their aggressiveness.

This kind of makes me wonder what AAA says about Chicago drivers.  (I am tempted to see if my picture appears somewhere as an example of aggressive.)

Ok, So we are NOT RENTING A CAR!!!.

Public Transportation or Uber.com?

A couple of people suggested using Uber.com for rides instead of relying on the MBTA.  “It’s just like taking a cab” they said.  (One person even offered that we would have less of a chance of sitting in CUM STAINS with Uber) EWWWWW!!!  I guess I should have mentioned that I have also never taken a cab before.  I grew up beyond the sticks- literally in the middle of nowhere.  Public transportation did not exist.  Remember the post about riding a horse on a subway?

I have to learn everything I can about everything, so after spending almost an hour on their website reading all the FAQ’s, I entered a “test” route to check rates.  The rate was almost $30.00!  I can drive this same distance in my car in 20 minutes and it only costs me $25.00 to fill my whole tank.  I was shocked!  People actually do this?!?!….ahhh but I guess you would have to pay for parking etc if you didn’t?!?!?   I am hoping the rates for Uber are cheaper in Boston, but just in case….

We decided to stay close to the Boston Convention Center, (the actual purpose of our trip).  I began to investigate hotels within walking distance of the convention center.  OUCH, just ouch!   A ” simple” google search “hotels near the Boston Convention Center” produced  1,060,000 results (0.87 seconds).  Of course I had to investigate them ALL…. Booking.com, Expedia, Orbitz, hotels.com, kayak to name a few.  I couldn’t find anything for less than $200.00 a night.   After a couple days of this, I stumbled on Airbnb.com.

What is Airbnb.com?

For those of you not familiar with Airbnb.com the explanation on wikipedia is here: What is Airbnb?, they also have pages and pages of FAQ’s on their website.  At first glance, I was a little intimidated by the thought of staying in a strangers house or apartment, so I just bookmarked the site to go back to .  I looked at hotels in other cities for cheaper prices, but they included an hour or more time on the train to and from Boston…… Ok staying at a strangers house it is……  Well a couple of different stranger’s houses, but I will have to write more about that later.

I have given both my kids names, addresses, contact information etc in case I get “lost”.  Can you think of anything I am forgetting?  Do you think Boston will leave an impression on me, or that I will leave an impression on Boston?