A Journey Though the Boston Park System

My kids and I spent more than a year visiting all 350 parks in the City of Boston. It was an incredible adventure where we saw the city as it really was. We discovered a city that I didn't know I didn't know. I chronicled many moments in our journey on Instagram.

Eddie and Fiona atop a tower in Paul Revere Park in Charlestown.

Media Attention

Everyone loved this story. The city wrote about us. NBC Boston did a nightly news segment on us. Boston.com did two stories on us to help people find the best parks in the city. The first was about hidden gem parks, the second was on the best playgrounds for kids. And finally, I wrote a piece for the Boston Globe Ideas section on how to improve the park system. Finally, in March of 2018, Boston.com did a piece about us on great places to go sledding in the city.

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Map of our journey

There are far more parks in Boston than anyone realizes. It's impossible to get an exact number, as there is doubt as to what is a park, and that the many park owners have inaccurate lists. My estimate is that there are about 350 of them, owned by the City of Boston, lots of state government agencies, the U.S. Post Office, and many private entities. We took photos of almost all parks we visited, and since they were geotagged, I could make a map of where we have been.

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Photos!

I undertook the journey to explore and also to help the city get much-needed photographs of parks in the city. They are all on my Flickr account in high-resolution formats. They are free for anyone to use non-commercially, as long as I am given credit somewhere. There are lots of albums there which should make locating pictures easier. But the search box is a great way to find pictures of a park where you know the name.

The Norman Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library had a big exhibit about the history of the Boston Park system and used some of our photographs in the exhibit! They treated us well when we visited and we loved the floor map of the park s… — The Norman Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library had a big exhibit about the history of the Boston Park system and used some of our photographs in the exhibit! They treated us well when we visited and we loved the floor map of the park system. I sat in front of it, and was amazed to survey all that we saw.