Tours in Lexington

David Goldstein could be considered a renaissance man: he's organized skiing trips and city bar crawls, founded a murder-mystery dinner theater, and led team-building exercises—one of which focused on sharing his passion for chocolate. As this particular venture garnered public demand, he began traveling across the country to meet with chocolatiers and cocoa experts. In 2009, he returned to Boston and focused his findings and theatrical flair into sweets-focused tours—what he now refers to as his passion business.

Today, his team includes chocolate-experience designer Caitlin, two chocolate tour guides, Count Chocula, three pastry-chef chocolatiers, and a wine expert who teaches wine-and-chocolate pairings. The guides lead guests on walking tours and a cupcake crawl through three of Boston's historic neighborhoods, taking them to boutique chocolate shops, bakeries, ice-cream parlors, and a cosmetics company that uses chocolate in its products. In hands-on workshops, chocolatiers teach students how to form truffles, make fillings, hand mold chocolate, and package confections.

Freewheeling around historic hallmarks and architecture, Boston By Segway, formerly Boston Gliders, has led more than 100,000 sightseers through Bean Town atop intuitive, easy-to-maneuver segways. Tours, which kick off every half-hour, range from one to two hours; the shorter version trundles down Boston's Harborwalk, and the longer sojourn ventures past historic hotspots including Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill. To get acquainted with the segway, all upright rollers speed through a half-hour how-not-to-crash course, getting acquainted with the natural, fluid steering and learning how to propel the vehicle forward using a carrot tied to a stick. Armed with digital cameras, the urban sherpas snap shots throughout the tour for purchase afterward, and customers may take their own pictures as long as they briefly hop off the segway.

When Valerie Beck was in kindergarten, there was only one way to get her to drink her milk: mixing in chocolate. As she grew up, her passion for the sweet treat only deepened. During a five-year stint living in Europe, she sleuthed out the most delectable chocolate shops and bakeries, eventually bringing friends along with her on trips to chocolate hot spots. After returning to the United States, she broadened her scope to create Boston Chocolate Walking Tours, focusing on the city’s increasing number of premium chocolatiers.

Valerie’s team of tour guides reveals Boston's best chocolate spots to guests on 2.5-hour tours around the Newbury Street neighborhood. They embark from Teuscher Chocolates of Switzerland, walking or canoeing across the city's historic chocolate canals. The tour changes daily, hitting five–six spots, such as DeLuca's Market and Emack & Bolio's, though the Lindt shop is always on the list.

Boston CityWalks’ owner, Alan Maltzman, loves to show his passion and knowledge for his city. At Boston CityWalks, he and his coterie of guides lead six different tours that roam the city’s historic cobblestones, highlighting areas such as Harvard Square, the waterfront, Beacon Hill, and various Jewish cultural sites. He can also design a custom tour for any occasion such as family vacations, engagements, birthdays, reunions, and business meetings.

Boston’s Finest Tours unveils the City on a Hill’s hidden charms to residents and visitors with five unique seasonal tours. Native Bostonians John Feeley and Cheryl McDonald lead tours dressed as their midcentury counterparts, Jonathan Wendell Holmes and Frances Appleton, while sharing tales of the city’s history and culture. The ghost tour of Beacon Hill thrusts patrons into close encounters with specters, and on the Irish Heritage tour, trolleys roll through Eire-influenced sites including the Boston Public Garden and Fenway Park. The Beacon Hill tour begins with a sighting of the State House’s brilliant gold dome before groups stroll down the brick sidewalks of Mount Vernon Street, the cobblestone corridor of Acorn Street, and the legendary Boston Strangler’s daily jogging route.

In the year of America’s bicentennial, the fervor for American history was at an all-time high, and few cities are as full of patriotic landmarks as Boston. As floods of citizens came to see and experience America’s roots, Polly Flansburgh decided to gather together experienced locals to educate visitors and newcomers on the stories in which the city is steeped. Nearly four decades later, her non-profit, Boston By Foot, Inc., still pairs curious patrons with enthusiastic volunteers schooled by the company in the city’s lore and architecture.

This diverse selection of tours allows patrons to learn more about the aspects of Boston that interest them most. Specialized excursions might visit the scenes of the city's most infamous crimes and diseases, the buildings important in the revolution, the homes of Boston’s greatest literary heroes, and places where somebody found an onion that looked sort of like Robert De Niro. The staff even lead one tour specifically designed for children, which helps illustrate lessons from history class without too much walking for little legs.