For the Summer 2025 Season, the Innovation Trail focuses on sharing the stories of what Boston has been doing since the American Revolution ended

Learn about the scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs who made Boston one of the most innovative cities in America and the world by joining a walking tour or scavenger hunt on the Innovation Trail. Boston Magazine has lauded the Innovation Trail as the city’s “Best Walking Tour” (2023).

With 21 sites, including four world-renowned museums and science centers, spanning Boston’s Downtown Crossing to Cambridge’s Central Square, The Innovation Trail gives visitors the chance to experience, learn about, and be inspired by four centuries of world-changing breakthroughs from Boston.

Already receiving 5-star TripAdvisor reviews and described by guests as “the best Boston history tour and among my top three greatest historical tours ever,” The Innovation Trail highlights dozens of breakthroughs that changed the world as we know it. Featured sites include the place where Thomas Edison launched his career as an inventor; where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and worked with a young Black draftsman, Lewis Latimer, to get it patented; where Technicolor showed its first color movies to the public; the research lab that helped Apollo spacecraft get safely to the Moon; the last candy factory still operating in Cambridge, a vestige of the city’s sweet manufacturing heritage; and the surgical theater where the first operation under anesthesia was performed.

There are four ways for visitors to experience The Innovation Trail. Customized private tours for groups of all sizes, including corporate outings and events, are available yearround with advance reservation. Between May and October, individuals can buy tickets on three regularly-scheduled tours each week. The Trail can organize competitive 60-to- 90 minute scavenger hunts for groups that want a more active way to experience it, complete with prizes for the winning team. And self-guided tours are available by following a printable map or mobile-friendly website — complete with detailed descriptions of each stop on The Innovation Trail, and an audio guide for each stop — at www.theinnovationtrail.org

For more information on tickets, reservations, group rates or questions, please email

Anna Dunbar, Executive Director of The Innovation Trail, at anna@theinnovationtrail.org.