10 Best Ferry & Boat Rides in Boston (Costs & Tips, 2026)

Georges Island is the hub of the Boston Harbor Islands national park area, and Fort Warren on it once held Confederate prisoners during the Civil War — free water taxis shuttle between Georges and several smaller islands once you've paid the roughly $20 mainland ferry fare. Runs seasonally, late May through Columbus Day, from Long Wharf.

Ninety minutes across open Massachusetts Bay beats the three-hour drive around the Cape by a wide margin, and it's common to spot minke or humpback whales along the route in summer without paying for a separate whale-watch. Round trip runs about $75 and the boat fills up on weekends, so booking a specific departure ahead matters more than it sounds like it should.

A 50-minute run up the coast that trades the commuter rail's tunnel view for open harbor and the Boston skyline shrinking behind you — it only runs seasonally, roughly May through October, and gets genuinely packed in the lead-up to Halloween, when Salem's witch-trial tourism peaks. Around $25 round trip, a few dollars more than the train but a completely different way to arrive.

An MBTA commuter boat rather than a tourist cruise, so you're riding alongside actual South Shore commuters — but the 30-minute run past the Hingham Shipyard, Hull Peninsula, and Boston Light more than earns its keep as a scenic trip in its own right. A single fare runs around $10 each way, cheapest way on this list to see the outer harbor from the water.

Hull's ferry landing sits at the very tip of Nantasket Beach's peninsula, so the ride in doubles as a preview of one of the South Shore's better public beaches — most riders get off, spend the afternoon on the sand, and catch a later boat back. Around $10 each way on the same MBTA fare structure as the Hingham route.

Barely a ten-minute crossing from Long Wharf, but it's the cheapest and fastest way to reach the USS Constitution and Bunker Hill Monument without walking the North End's crowded sidewalks first. A single ride costs about $4 — one of the best value-for-money boat rides in the city, even if it's over almost before it starts.

Piers Park's unobstructed downtown skyline view is one of the best in the city and most visitors never find it — the East Boston Ferry crosses from Lewis Mall Wharf to Long Wharf in a few short minutes, a cheap way to reach it without dealing with the Sumner Tunnel by car.

A stretch of coastline that most visitors never see, since it's well outside the usual tourist routes — this run connects Winthrop's Point Shirley neighborhood to downtown Boston, and the boat itself is small enough that the ride feels more like a private charter than a transit line. Around $10 each way.

A direct seasonal route to one of the harbor's quietest islands — Peddocks has its own crumbling Fort Andrews to explore and a campground for anyone who wants to turn the trip into an overnight, all a fraction of the crowd Georges Island gets on a summer weekend. Roughly $20 round trip when the direct route is running; otherwise it's reachable via water taxi from Georges Island.

Launched as a temporary fix during Blue Line construction and kept on permanently once riders decided they preferred it — the run from Lynn's waterfront to Long Wharf takes about 30 minutes and skips the T entirely, open harbor the whole way instead of a tunnel. Around $7 each way, one of the newer and least-touristed boats on this list.