September is nearly upon us, which means kids in New England are set to jump off the bus, race into the classroom and ask, “So when’s our first field trip??”

After two years of caution, field trips are finally returning to the curriculums of many schools. They’re a unique experience, as you get to ride an extra bus, let loose in a place you’ve never been, and try not to think about how it’s weird your teacher is wearing shorts.

I feel very lucky that I got to go on many wonderful field trips, and thought I’d share the ones I consider to be the best. But before we get to that, let’s also take a look at the best part of field trips when you’re a kid: stuff that went wrong! Nothing terrible – just stuff you still laugh at years later, like in third grade when we went to Plymouth Plantation and saw the much-hyped Plymouth Rock. Alas, the rock has diminished in size over the years – as emphasized by the man visiting with his grandkids who exclaimed, “I’ve passed kidney stones bigger than that!”

Then there was sixth grade when we went to the Museum of Fine Arts. According to our teacher, nobody wanted to leave. What she didn’t know, however, was that someone (not one of us!) had hacked into the digital scroll signs and entered a bunch of swears. Expressionism at its finest.

But the highlight is when we went to the Museum of Science in Boston in seventh grade, and an entire display was dedicated to explaining delays with the Big Dig. This was in 1996. True to their word, officials finally finished this massive transportation initiative. In 2007.

The Best New England School Field Trips

Thanks to its history and geological variance, New England offers some of the best field trip opportunities in the nation. Here are some of them.

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