Boston is a city that is very well connected by public transportation! Your cheapest, and usually most reliable, option will be taking “the T,” Boston’s official mode of public transport, which includes both trains and buses. This means you only need to have one card whether you decide to travel by train, bus, or sometimes even ferry! You can look for signs with a circled T that will mark bus stops and entrances to train stations. At the train stations you can find maps of each train line, named by color. The red line will take you to many of the schools, including Harvard and MIT; the silver line takes you to the airport; the blue line takes you to the beach. Stops usually have fairly clear names, so check out the map for where you want to go.

Outside of each train stop there will also be a bus stop to take you to nearby neighborhoods. You can often take the bus as an alternative to the trains; the trains come more frequently, but the buses can be a nice alternative to be above ground and get to see the neighborhoods you’re travelling into; it helps you to become more familiar with the area. They also will usually be able to get you a lot closer to your final destination, if you do not like walking. (But remember that Boston itself is not too big; walking a few blocks won’t take long.) As a rule of thumb, buses travel to a train station, and trains travel to the city center. Everything else is just an appendage from there.

The T is very safe, much cleaner than cities like New York, though the hours are not as great. (If you stay out past midnight, plan on calling a cab, because the T will probably not be running anymore.) Train stations will have kiosks that will allow you to purchase paper passes ($15 for a 7-day pass), or you can go to the local grocery store to get a plastic card to refill as needed; if you plan on paying per trip rather than a week or month pass, getting the plastic card will save you about 25 cents per ride.