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Town in Massachusetts, United States

Brookline

Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, and part of the Boston metropolitan area.

Brookline
Brookline · Wikimedia Commons
The place

Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, and part of the Boston metropolitan area. An exclave of Norfolk County, Brookline borders six of the City of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Allston, Fenway–Kenmore, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and West Roxbury. The city of Newton borders Brookline to the west. It is known for being the birthplace of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Conan O'Brien.

Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

What is there

Worth seeing in and around Brookline

10 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.

  1. 01
    Harvard University

    Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636, and named Harvard College in 1639 in honor of its first benefactor, Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.

    4.8 km · private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts · Wikipedia
  2. 02
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1861 to advance "useful knowledge", the university has played a significant role in the development of many areas of technology and science.

    4 km · private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, founded 1861 · Wikipedia
  3. 03
    Boston University

    Boston University is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodists with its original campus in Newbury, Vermont.

    2.6 km · private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia
  4. 04
    Museum of Fine Arts Boston

    The Museum of Fine Arts is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area.

    2.4 km · art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia
  5. 05
    Berklee College of Music

    Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world.

    3.3 km · independent college of contemporary music in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia
  6. 06
    Boston College

    Boston College is a private Catholic Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order, the university has more than 15,000 total students, making it the seventh largest Catholic university in the U.S. by enrollment.

    4 km · private research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia
  7. 07
    Northeastern University

    Northeastern University is a private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male institute before being incorporated as Northeastern College in 1916, gaining university status in 1922.

    2.9 km · private university in Boston, Massachusetts, USA · Wikipedia
  8. 08
    Harvard College Observatory

    The Harvard College Observatory is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, and was founded in 1839.

    5.6 km · observatory · Wikipedia
  9. 09
    Harvard Law School

    Harvard Law School is the law school of Harvard University, a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United States.

    5.2 km · law school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts · Wikipedia
  10. 10
    Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

    The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts.

    2 km · art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia

Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Go there

Getting to Brookline

Airports
Boston Logan (BOS), 10 km · Rhode Island T. F. Green (PVD), 72 km · Bradley (BDL), 136 km
Stations
South Station, 5.9 km
  • Providence/Warwick → Brookline
    75 km · quickest by road, 1h 56m · $7–10
  • Portland → Brookline
    14 km · quickest by road, 35 min · $1.5–2
  • Hartford → Brookline
    144 km · quickest by road, 2h 36m · $13–17
  • From anywhere
    The planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
    Plan a trip

Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.

Not yet researched

No local-transport research exists yet for Brookline

Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Brookline. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.

What Wikivoyage says about moving around
  • Get inLong Wharf is the most popular; offering MBTA connections to the Charlestown Navy Yard, Logan Airport, Hingham and Hull, as well as a seasonal ferry to Salem.
  • Get inBoston Harbor Cruises offers other seasonal ferries, decamping to the Boston Harbor Islands, or heading out to Provincetown.
  • Get inThere is another ferry from here to Hingham, and a seasonal one to Winthrop.
  • Get inWater taxis are plentiful all along the waterfront, servicing 28 different points between downtown, South Boston, East Boston, and Charlestown.
  • Go nextHead down to the wharf and take a ferry out to the Boston Harbor Islands.

From Wikivoyage: Boston/Downtown, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-09.

The nearest places where the work is done
  1. 01
    Fire IslandUS

    10 ways of moving, 18 sources

    252 km
  2. 02
    Vinalhaven and the Fox IslandsUS

    9 ways of moving, 13 sources

    266 km
  3. 03
    Tortola and the British Virgin IslandsVG

    11 ways of moving, 15 sources

    2,728 km
  4. 04
    ViequesPR

    8 ways of moving, 12 sources

    2,744 km
  5. 05
    SabaNL

    8 ways of moving, 22 sources

    2,846 km

If you know how people move in Brookline – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.

Around it

Next door to Brookline

Brookline is 6 km from Boston, the nearest large city, whose note carries the wider picture.

  • Roxburydissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States2.3 km
  • Chestnut Hillvillage in Massachusetts3.7 km
  • South Bostonneighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States5.1 km
  • Fenway–Kenmoreneighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States2.1 km