Dorchester
Dorchester is a neighborhood comprising more than 6 square miles (16 km2) in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Dorchester is a neighborhood comprising more than 6 square miles (16 km2) in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Originally, Dorchester was a separate town, founded by Puritans who emigrated in 1630 from Dorchester, Dorset, England, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This dissolved municipality, Boston's largest neighborhood by far, is often divided by city planners in order to create two planning areas roughly equivalent in size and population to other Boston neighborhoods.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Worth seeing in and around Dorchester
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.
- 01Massachusetts 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.
5.9 km · private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, founded 1861 · Wikipedia - 02Boston 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.
5.5 km · private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia - 03Museum 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.
4.4 km · art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia - 04TD Garden
TD Garden is a multi-purpose arena in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located directly above the MBTA's North Station, and it replaced the original Boston Garden upon opening in 1995.
5.6 km · multi-purpose arena in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia - 05Berklee 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.
4.5 km · independent college of contemporary music in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia - 06Northeastern 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.
4.1 km · private university in Boston, Massachusetts, USA · Wikipedia - 07Isabella 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.
4.7 km · art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Wikipedia - 08Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth, meaning all adult residents of the state are entitled to borrowing and research privileges, and the library receives state funding.
4.9 km · library system in Boston, Massachusetts · Wikipedia - 09John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and museum of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Columbia Point in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, next to the University of Massachusetts Boston, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, and the Massachusetts Archives and Commonwealth Museum.
1.4 km · presidential library and museum for U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Boston, Massachusetts · Wikipedia - 10John Hancock Tower
The John Hancock Tower, colloquially known as the Hancock, is a 60-story, 790-foot skyscraper in the Back Bay neighborhood of downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The pinnacle height is 852 feet.
4.2 km · skyscraper in Boston, 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.
Getting to Dorchester
- Airports
- Boston Logan (BOS), 6 km · Rhode Island T. F. Green (PVD), 73 km · Bradley (BDL), 141 km
- Stations
- South Station, 3.9 km · North Station, 5.6 km
- Providence/Warwick → Dorchester74 km · quickest by road, 1h 52m · $7–9
- Portland → Dorchester7873 km · quickest by air, 19h 47m · $1,280–1,960
- Hartford → Dorchester146 km · quickest by road, 2h 47m · $14–19
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Dorchester
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 Dorchester. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get inOne of the most popular and frequent are Water Taxis.
- Get inHop aboard a real ship and take the Bay State Cruise Company's Provincetown Fast Ferry, running from the pier with the Seaport Hotel during the summer months.
- Go nextBut boats are available to ferry you to the Boston Harbor Islands seasonally.
- Go nextIf you have 100 bucks and 90 minutes, climb aboard the fast ferry to Provincetown.
From Wikivoyage: Boston/South Boston, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-09.
- 01255 km
- 02263 km
- 032,725 km
- 042,741 km
- 052,843 km
If you know how people move in Dorchester – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Dorchester
Dorchester is 2 km from South Boston, the nearest large city, whose note carries the wider picture.
- Roxburydissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States3.8 km
- North Endneighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States5.4 km
- Fenway–Kenmoreneighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States5 km
- Chinatownneighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States3.8 km
- Beacon Hillneighborhood in Boston4.8 km