Boston History Company — Local services in Boston

I recently had the pleasure of taking Cambridge Historical Tours’ “Innovation Trail” walking tour of the Kendall Square area of Cambridge. The tour, led by the amazing Daniel Berger-Jones, focused on the astonishing output of technological and scientific innovations conceived and developed in that small corner of the US. From the invention of the telephone to the mapping of the human genome to today’s news-making advances in artificial intelligence, Daniel’s presentation combined a mastery of the historical subject matter equal to that of a specialist’s academic lecture with fascinating insights into the human beings who produced the miracles of cutting-edge research and technology, all delivered with the engaging humor of a top stand-up comedian. His deep knowledge and genuine passion for the subject matter were evident throughout the tour, and he was able to gracefully make the complex information accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds in our group. I highly recommend this thoroughly enjoyable tour to anyone interested in learning more about where so many of the modern world’s miraculous ideas and...

I was teaching a class this summer about creativity and invention, and one of our teachers found this tour of the Cambridge Innovation Trail. We thought it might tie in well to our subject matter, and be a fun outing for the students. It exceeded our expectations by far!

Boston Historical Tours were super flexible in customizing the tour for our group. Daniel, our guide, had a great instinct for the sights and stories our groups would find interesting, and our students (aged 10-12) were enthralled throughout.The kids were curious and inspired (so were the adults!), and brought that wonderful energy back into our class and their own inventions.

At the end of the summer program, many students specifically cited this tour as a highlight of their experience. One of our 12-year-olds, who'd been particularly intrigued by the stories that shed new light on inventions we use every day, said, "I don't think I'll ever look at my life the same way again." I don't think there could be higher praise!

100% recommend, and we plan to book this tour again...

I recently visited Boston for the first time with some family members. We all chose something we wanted to do, and this walking tour was what I was looking forward to the most. I had to book the tour through an app, which is fine. It was easy to use. However, there is a button in the app that you click and it opens Google maps to take you to the meeting location (a beautiful monument). My group met at the dot on the map 10 minutes before the tour time. We asked several people in the area if they were waiting for the tour, and nobody was. About 12 minutes after the tour was supposed to start, I went back into the app and found some fine print that said the tour didn't actually meet where the map said, but behind and below the monument. I sent a message asking for a refund since the meeting location in the app was not correct, but they refused. It was very disappointing. I'm sure if you book a different way or ignore the map feature, it's probably a great tour, but I'll never...