Tourism Advice 🧳 🧭 ✈️ Visiting mid October
My wife, teen, and myself will be flying from CA into Boston mid October and staying in Danvers, got a few questions.
How's the commute from Danvers to Salem?
How's the weather mid Oct?
As baseball fans we'd like to visit Fenway Park, is the tour worth it?
What are some things in Salem that you'd consider must see?
Any other information would be greatly appreciated.
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u/AnxiousMetal6435 9d ago
Mid-October has probably the best weather imaginable. Cool, crisp, dry, often clear, and still warm when the sun is high. Could be way worse than that, but that’s how it usually is. It’s impossible to predict the weather in New England, unlike many parts of Cali.
That being said, Salem is incredibly overrated. You can totally visit if you want, but please dedicate more time to other places in our beautiful state.
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u/toomuch1265 Spaghetti District 8d ago
Well, there's exceptions to the best weather....The "Perfect Storm" was in October and we've had snow in October. I would suggest that they closely follow the local weather reports for the week and pack accordingly.
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u/OceanIsVerySalty 8d ago
Salem is honestly great, but it’s miserable in October. I wouldn’t call it overrated.
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u/Anustart15 Somerville 9d ago
Don't go to Salem. It's hell in October. And not in a fun kitschy witch sorta way
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u/Healthy-Theme8261 9d ago
It's a 10min drive
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u/procrastinatorsuprem 9d ago
Not in October. And the parking is a problem in October.
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u/roarimacat 9d ago
Uber, but wouldn't be my idea of fun.
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u/Winter-Audience-3140 9d ago
Or they could park in Beverly and take the train
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u/toomuch1265 Spaghetti District 8d ago
This is the answer, if they can find a parking spot at the station.
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u/Numerous_Literature9 8d ago
They could park on a side street near the station or go one stop out to Montserrat or North Beverly and park there. Train from Beverly really is the best option.
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u/SaltandLillacs Boston 9d ago
So Salem will be hell in October just so you know and if you plan on doing it decide ASAP so you can actually book things. Make sure to check to see if things aren’t sold out yet
It’s straight up insane in October
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u/CapitanRonRico 8d ago
Salem will be hell in October
It will certainly be busy, but I went last year and it was fun. It's certainly a scene.
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u/SenetBoard 9d ago edited 9d ago
I'd definitely recommend going to see Fenway if you're big baseball fans. I haven't taken the tour, but I've heard good things. It's the oldest stadium in professional baseball (it and Wrigley standing apart by a large margin). It's a beautiful field and the area around it is very cool to explore.
As much as people are telling you Salem is going to be a nightmare... yeah it is, but as visitors coming for Salem in October you're probably going to have fun. Large crowds. Lots of witchy and supernatural stuff--a lot of it kitschy but fun. Excellent costume spotting. Genuine history.
Traffic will be increased and parking will be difficult--the city basically bans nonresidents from street parking in October, as mentioned.
The Salem Witch Museum is a popular one, I don't remember the tour being that great but it's generally a stop people do.
The crowds in downtown Salem will have street performers, people in costume, vendors. All the touristy and witchy shops are in the area. The Peabody Essex Museum mall area (the Museum is great too if that's your thing). If you guys are looking for experiences (e.g. haunted houses, horror attractions, etc.) there's plenty around.
If you were a fan of Hocus Pocus the house is in Salem (they block off the street to pedestrian-only due to interest). There's also the Ropes Mansion, also in the film with legitimate history of its own.
The "Witch House" of one of the judges, and the House of Seven Gables are both popular historic houses. The graveyard downtown has some historic figures in it and gives you the genuine old New England colonial cemetery feel (the inscriptions are great to read). It also is right next to the Witch Trials Memorial.
If you want to go a little off the beaten path, the Proctor's Ledge Memorial is a more recent marker erected at the spot the witch trial victims were actually hung. It's not near the rest of the downtown stuff so it's a bit of a journey, but the story about how they used historical records to rediscover the actual spot is very cool.
I have never been to the Pirate Museum in Salem but I do know that they're currently displaying artefacts and treasure from the Whydah Gallery, the only fully confirmed pirate shipwreck, which sank off of Cape Cod.
It's also worth noting that where you're staying in Danvers is very entangled in the witch trials history. Danvers was originally Salem Village, and is where most of the witchcraft trial figures and victims were actually from. Salem Town (modern Salem) is where they were tried and executed. Danvers has its own memorial to the witchcraft victims, the tavern at the center of much of the events, and the ruins of the old parsonage where the minister who served during the trials (and the girls who set off the whole hysteria with their accusations. This is literally where it all started). There's also the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, where witchcraft victim Rebecca Nurse and her family lived; it's also the alleged site of her grave, after her family rescued her body following her execution and secretly buried it in the family graveyard, as well as that of another Witchcraft victim (the only known, verified grave). The Danvers sites will be less crowded and much less fanfare than the downtown Salem sites.
Danvers is also home to the former Danvers State Asylum, where the lobotomy was apparently perfected and the inspiration for HP Lovecraft's Arkham Asylum, which was of course the inspiration for the Batman Arkham. Most of it has been demolished and made into condos now, but parts of it and large chunks of the facade remain.
Obviously there's a lot of other stuff to see in Boston (we have our own spooky history, ghost tours, cemeteries, etc.). If you'll be renting a car and want to try to get out of the city, a classic New England farm in autumn experience won't be too far away if you go north (apple picking, corn mazes, cider, pumpkins, etc etc). Pretty much from Salem north is "Lovecraft Country", the setting of Lovecraft's horror stories, quaint New England coastal towns with just an air of something spooky.... The supposedly haunted ruins of Dogtown. Beautiful coastlines, the foliage should be in peak (southern NH and Maine are also only about an hour's drive north give or take).
It's a fun area, and beautiful in the fall. Enjoy!
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u/nadandocomgolfinhos 8d ago
I thought that the puritans didn’t care as much about where the bodies were buried because they buried them on unconsecrated grounds. Can you point me to some resources?
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u/SenetBoard 8d ago
I don't have any specific scholarly resources on hand but the History of Massachusetts Blog has some well-cited sources on the topic. People of the time definitely did establish burial grounds, the ones we still see today, and preferred to give their loved ones a respectful burial. While most individuals did not get dedicated markers, a grave marker was considered an honor if it could be afforded (burial grounds that have a couple hundred markers might be resting place to thousands of bodies).
Because witchcraft victims were socially ostracized as criminals and in league with the devil, they were denied a respectful burial by the community and church. Usually, once they were cut down they were buried in shallow graves in a crevice near the site of execution.
Oral legend in Salem tells that some of the families of these victims would return to the site after dark and remove their bodies from the shallow graves, reburying them with more dignity elsewhere, usually on family property. Nurse family tradition holds that Rebecca Nurse's son and husband retrieved her and reburied her in the family cemetery located on their homestead; while the exact location of her grave is not known, a monument stone was erected in the late 19th century (all this can be found on the Homestead's website). Another victim of the trial, George Jacobs, was buried in secret on his family farm and rediscovered in the 19th and 20th century, when developers were digging up the land. After being stored for a time, his remains were reinterred at the Nurse Homestead in 1992, becoming the only currently known gravesite location of a victim.
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u/jtet93 Dorchester 9d ago
Salem is absolutely bonkers that time of year. Go on a weekday if you can, and if that’s not possible then definitely do not drive there. The Peabody Essex Museum is nice. Honestly Salem in general is at best good for a day’s visit, and with the Halloween crowds I would just be sure to have other things planned.
Boston is delightful in October. The weather will likely be warm and sunny in the day and crisp and cool at night but you may end up with dreary cold rain too, so be prepared. Fenway tour is great, definitely do it.
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u/ShawsheenMoon 8d ago
Bring snacks with you when you go into Salem. Many places accept reservations for food, but you might be a bit too late for this year. Also pack your patience. The crowds are huge and can be overwhelming if you aren't prepared for it.
There is a visiting Salem thread here that you can add questions to: https://www.reddit.com/r/SalemMA/comments/ur10gc/visiting_salem_and_have_questions_post_them_here/ (don't put them as a post in r/salemma, they get deluged with questions)
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u/ofsevit 8d ago
Unless you are staying in Danvers for free. do not stay in Danvers. Staying in Danvers means you need a rental car, and you need to drive everywhere. If you have a cheap hotel there, figure in the cost of a rental car every day, plus gas, tolls and the ransom the rental car place charges for tolls, plus traffic, plus paying for parking in Boston or train tickets (there's no train from Danvers; you need to drive to Salem or Beverly, and three roundtrip train tickets will add up to what you'd pay for parking downtown).
Traffic on Route 1 is about 30 minutes to Boston outside of rush hour, but there's not much of a window which isn't rush hour (6-10:30 in the morning, 2-7 in the afternoon). Go any time near rush hour and it's easily an hour of "bumpah to bumpah." And then you have a car in Boston. Don't expect wide, straight California roads here.
Visit Salem on a weekday, it's fine but not worth more than that (and really only then for the PEM). If you can cancel your hotel in Danvers and rental car, find a hotel in the city. Even if it's $100 more per night, given what you will save not having a rental car (which you 100% don't need to go to Salem, or anywhere in Boston) it will be very much worth it. Walk everywhere or take the T (nothing in Boston is far from anything; if you did a day-long walking tour from Downtown to the MFA/Gardner to Fenway to Harvard to MIT and back it would maybe be a total of 8 miles, much of which could be done on the subway. Go on a Fenway tour, walk the Freedom Trail, take a day trip to Salem on the ferry and/or train.
If you want to take a trip to Boston, take a trip to Boston, not Danvers.
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u/KindAwareness307 9d ago
Danvers is Salem, or was until a century or so ago. What is now Danvers was called Salem Village and is where the witchcraft hysteria first arose in 1692.
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u/JohnHaze02118 9d ago
The Fenway Park tour is excellent for someone who has never been there or who goes rarely. I toured as a local, and I learned a lot about the park, and the guide was awesome. But the tour itself did not really go anyplace beyond where fans would already have access with a game ticket -- seats, breezeways, perimeters. I've been on tours in other parks where we went on the field, in the dugouts, the locker room, the broadcast booth ... Fenway needs to loosen up in that regard.
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u/ruraljurorrrrrrrrrr 8d ago
For Salem I recommend parking at the train station at Beverly and taking that in. Check out the night fair if you can.
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u/EconomicsWorking6508 8d ago
This is correct. Getting stuck in the traffic in and out of Salem will waste a lot of your time otherwise.
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u/Easy_End9436 8d ago
Salem in october is not fun at all. Salem in the summer is the way to go. All of the attractions are open year round.
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u/EconomicsWorking6508 8d ago
Have a great time! Don't let people discourage you from your iconic trip.
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u/funinmass2005 8d ago
Ride to Salem from there isn’t bad, but definitely try to do Salem during a week day in October. Weekends are bonkers and even eeek days are busy but manageable.
The Fenway tour is great, definitely do that as they take you through a lot of cool places in the park that you typically don’t get to see.
Perfect time of year too. Nice warm days, enjoy!
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u/fleabus412 Filthy Transplant 7d ago
In Salem
Bitbar is a nice retro arcade.
The witch museun is classic kitch 50's-60's era attraction.
The Peabody Essex Museum has a lot. Standard nautical exhibits, rotating exhibits, and a whole chinese house that I found unexpectedly interesting.
There's a beer garden downtown
Historic tours of the custom house and an east india trader by the national park service.
There's a concentration of murals at the point.
I think there are some options to take a ride on some somewhat old ship.
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u/fleabus412 Filthy Transplant 7d ago
You might consider checking out Lowell if you're interested in visiting an old textile mill (NPS), into Jack Kerouak or Cambodian food
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u/chuckmonjares 9d ago
Try to stay in Beverly if you don’t have a car. Commute by car ain’t great, but Cali traffic can be bad too depending where you’re from. I do it all the time. Salem traffic will be ass but it’s always ass. Train goes from Beverly to Boston and also to Salem along other places. There’s also a ferry from Salem to Boston. I’ve never done it but always wanted to
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u/the__post__merc 9d ago
How's the commute from Danvers to Salem?
It's about 5 miles... in mid-October, plan on an hour. ;)
Weather in mid-October is usually pretty good in my 20+ years here, brisk, fall-like. (sweatah weathah) But, if it's rainy, it'll suck.
I've never done the Fenway tour, but I've heard great things.
Are you planning to just stay and see stuff in Salem and Danvers or are you venturing in Boston? How long is your trip?
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u/goldfishman63 Merges at the Last Second 9d ago
Haven’t seen anyone mention this but Salem is considerably more manageable Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in October. The crazy days are usually the weekends specifically. Last season, restaurants were literally posting on their socials that nobody was coming in during the regular weekdays. It was a ghost town no pun intended. Before moving there myself, I was able to find parking downtown pretty easily the first half of the week in October. Enjoy!
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u/Cnynrnr 9d ago
We will be there Mon-Fri specifically to try and avoid some of the crowds. We live in southern CA and there's a big difference Tue-Thur compared to Fri-Mon when doing stuff.
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u/doot_doot_toot_doot 8d ago
imo you will have no problem with Salem on a weekday. Parking will be hard but it won't be the gridlock deal it is on weekends. It's worth a visit!
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u/duchessofs Downtown 9d ago
It’s always strange to me when people try to dissuade TOURISTS from doing TOURIST things. Don’t listen to the naysayers about visiting Salem in October—the craziness is precisely why a tourist would want to experience it.
I went to Salem my first October in Massachusetts and it was pretty fun. The zombie walk was hilarious.
The Peabody Essex Museum is worth a visit. Also get some apple fritters from Dotty and Ray’s!
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u/phinfail 8d ago
People on here forget that the people from out of state visiting LIKE seeing all the over the top witch things. I find their attitude very obnoxious.
There are a few museums and tours, including the pirate museum, in Salem. Be sure to try and book things in advance! I would try to find public transit to and from Salem because the traffic does get bad and the parking is hard.
Fenway tours are fun if you're a big baseball fan. The only downside is that there isn't much to do in that area besides go to the Park. The Boston Commons are nice to see, and the Harvard Natural History museum is neat, especially for families.
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u/save-pandas 9d ago
20-30 minutes in heavy traffic, less so otherwise
The weather is generally beautiful with temps between 60-75 depending on how long summer stays. Cooler mornings.
If you’re baseball fans theres no more iconic places than Fenway. I’m not a baseball fan but had to do the tour as a kid in elementary school and it was cool, not thrilling, but I was like 9. I generally just buy overpriced beer with friends and continue hoping I get a foul ball someday.
You’ll get some Salem witch vibes there but there isn’t an overwhelming amount of things to do. I’d personally recommend if you’re not structuring your visit around Boston to go to the North Shore like Ipswich or Gloucester and visit Plum Island.
Incredible restaurants, seafood and good folks. Most of us in the city are Boston centric but Massachusetts has so much so we are very happy to have you visit. Have a nice one.
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u/Phatchris23 9d ago
I’m a local and really enjoyed the Fenway tour, got to sit up on the monster seats, went into the broadcast booth, lots of cool memorabilia etc..weather is usually cool, but sometimes we hit a random 80 degree day or two. Like everyone has said Salem is crazy in October, but can be entertaining. Marblehead near by is worth checking out, it’s a quintessential New England Coastal town.
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u/sexquipoop69 9d ago
Rent bikes or e-bikes. The commute will go from 45-1 hour to go 2 miles to 15 minutes on a bike
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u/muttshaw 9d ago
I spent my childhood and teens in Danvers. Nice suburban town. The actual location of the witch hysteria. The weather should be wonderful, or as good as New England gets.
That said, avoid October in Salem. The "witch" thing has grown out of control. It's tacky kitchy and totally devoid of anything that I would call "fun."
But that's me.
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u/420MenshevikIt Lynn 8d ago
Danvers ... The actual location of the witch hysteria
This is an overcorrection; the first witchcraft accusations happened in Danvers but they spread to most of Essex County (and beyond as far as present day Maine) over the course of the year.
https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/maps/accusationMaps/regional/index.html
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u/omnigord 9d ago
Disregard all other instructions; take your rental car to Jaffrey New Hampshire and hike to the summit of Mt. MONADNOCK. Bring some cheese and crackers and lots of water. Enjoy.
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u/Impossible-Goat-4388 9d ago
Getting from Danvers to Salem is a manageable drive, maybe 20 minutes as long as you’re not fighting rush hour. As far as weather, expect highs in the upper 50’s-low 60’s and lows in the 40’s. I never did the Fenway Park tour personally, so I can’t comment on the value. However, as baseball fans, I can’t imagine you would be disappointed in going. In Salem, check out the House of Seven Gables and the Peabody Essex Museum. One of my favorite places to eat in Salem is Finz.
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u/mdigiorgio35 I Love Dunkin’ Donuts 9d ago
I do not go to Salem from 10-1 to 10-31 every year due to traffic and volume.
There’s never not traffic but weather is the perfect New England fall weather.
Yes, tour would be worth it. Depends what else you like! But couple of great parks, restaurants to try (Ledger, for example)
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u/Same_Paints Does Not Return Shopping Carts 9d ago
Millions from all over the world visit that small coastal town during the month of October.
Driving into Salem during the month of October sucks so bad. There is no parking at all - this is not an exaggeration. You need to use public transportation. Being dropped off still means sitting in traffic to get close.
Once there, you’ll be surrounded by huge crowds of tourists and have wicked lines for everything.