The best things to do in Cambridge, MA are the Harvard Art Museums, Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Charles River paths. This guide is written for people who live here, so it's organized by what holds up year-round and what's worth going out of your way for in each season, with an eye on what's walkable from a Red Line stop.
Most of the city's best options are free. If you're weighing where in the city to live rather than what to do once you're there, our Cambridge walkability guide breaks it down neighborhood by neighborhood.
What's worth doing in Cambridge all year?
Cambridge's standing attractions are concentrated along the Red Line, and the best of them cost nothing.
The Harvard Art Museums are free to all visitors every day, which makes them the strongest default in the city. They're open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 to 5 and closed Mondays. Advance registration is encouraged at weekends but walk-ins are fine. The building is worth the trip on its own, with a glass roof over a central courtyard that works as a place to sit even if you don't look at a single painting. Details are on the museums' visit page.
Mount Auburn Cemetery is the second place Cambridge residents keep coming back to. It's a working cemetery and an arboretum at the same time, with marked trails, a tower with a panoramic view, and what the cemetery itself calls one of the premier birding destinations in Massachusetts. It asks visitors to treat it as the burial ground it is, which in practice means no running, cycling or picnicking.
The Charles River paths are the piece of Cambridge most residents use most often without thinking of it as an attraction. They run largely unbroken from the Museum of Science up past Harvard and on toward Watertown, they're flat, and they're free.
How are Cambridge's squares different?
Cambridge has no single downtown, and the squares are different enough that picking the right one matters more than picking the right venue.
- Harvard Square is the one that shows up in guidebooks, and it still has the bookshops, the buskers and plenty of places open late on a weeknight. It's also the busiest.
- Central Square is where the music venues are. It's scruffier, and it has the better odds of something happening on a Tuesday.
- Kendall Square is the lab and office district. It has grown a food scene over the last decade, and it is quieter at weekends.
- Porter Square is the quiet one, with a cluster of Japanese restaurants and a shopping center that residents use and visitors never find.
- Inman Square sits between Central and Union and has no T stop of its own, which has kept it smaller and more local than the rest.
Our guide to Cambridge commutes covers how these connect to the rest of the region if you're thinking about where to base yourself.
Cambridge in the fall: Head of the Charles and the foliage
Fall is when Cambridge's free outdoor options are at their best.
Head of the Charles runs over a weekend each October, and watching from the riverbanks is free. The stretch near the Weeks Footbridge is the crowded part, and the race organizers point to Magazine Beach for a quieter view.
Mount Auburn Cemetery is a good foliage option if you don't have a car. It's about a 30-minute walk or a short ride on the 71 or 73 bus from Harvard Square, and a weekday afternoon in mid-October is a good time to go.
The university museums get busier once term starts, so the Harvard Art Museums are better on a weekday than a Saturday from October onward. The same applies to anywhere in Harvard Square that students use.
Cambridge in winter: museums, the library and the squares
Winter in Cambridge is an indoor season, and the free museums are what carry it.
The Harvard Art Museums stay free and open Tuesday to Sunday through the winter, and a cold weekday afternoon is the best time to see them without a crowd. Because admission costs nothing, there's no pressure to make a half-hour visit worth the money.
The Cambridge Public Library's main branch is the other warm free option. The modern glass addition onto the original 1889 building is a nice place to sit and read.
Harvard Square handles winter better than most of the city because so much of it is indoors and close together, so you can move between places without a long walk in the cold. Central Square's music venues run year-round, which makes them an easy winter plan.
Cambridge in spring: the river and the birds
Spring brings the river back into use, and for most residents that's the main thing that changes.
Memorial Drive closes to cars on Sundays during the warmer months, which turns the riverside into the best open space in Cambridge for a few hours a week. It fills with cyclists, runners, families and people who just want to walk in the road, and it's free.
Mount Auburn is at its best in spring for birding, when the migration comes through and the cemetery fills with people carrying binoculars.
The squares come back outside in spring too. Patios reopen, and the stretch of Massachusetts Avenue between Harvard and Central becomes pleasant to walk again rather than something to get through.
Cambridge in summer: the riverbank and a quieter Harvard Square
Summer is when Cambridge's outdoor programming shows up, mostly free and mostly near the water.
The Charles riverbank is the main event in a Cambridge summer. The Esplanade across the river in Boston gets the bigger concerts, but the Cambridge side is quieter and has better places to sit down.
Kendall Square has hosted lunchtime programming in its open spaces in summer, which is a good reason to be in that part of the city on a weekday rather than avoiding it.
Harvard Square thins out when term ends, and July and August are the easiest months to enjoy it.
Living here rather than visiting
Almost everything good in Cambridge is better on a Tuesday afternoon than a Saturday, and most of it is free.
You also don't have to choose a square and stick with it. They're close enough together that walking between Central and Harvard takes 20 to 25 minutes along Massachusetts Avenue, and the Red Line does it in a few minutes if the weather is bad.
If you're still looking for a place, you can browse Cambridge apartments on Spot Easy and search by neighborhood.
Our full Cambridge rental guide covers rents by bedroom count and how the neighborhoods compare if you're at the comparing stage.
If you're bringing a car, read the parking permit rules before you need them.
A note on checking before you go
Opening hours and admission policies change. The Harvard Art Museums page linked above is the one to check rather than a listings site, and anything described here by season rather than by date is deliberate, because the exact weekend moves each year.