UPDATE

The renown Lowell Quilt Festival returns to Lowell on August 7-10, 2008. The Festival is a city-wide celebration of quilts displayed at various venues throughout Lowell including the Tsongas Arena and the Radisson Hotel Chelmsford. Proceeds from the show benefit the New England Quilt Museum. Have your quilt appraised by an expert or attend an auction, class or lecture. Convention attendees may want to sample this festival and one or more of its events at locations around the city. More information on the festival web site.

In addition to the rail tours, the 2008 Convention will offer several non-rail tours. Of course the LOWELL NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK tour,  included at no additional charge in every convention attendee's registration package, could just as easily have been put on this page as on the Rail Tours page since it also offers many non-rail opportunities to enjoy the history of the Lowell area. This includes The Mill Girls and Immigrants Exhibit, Boot Cotton Mills Museum, and Kerouac Park.

For attendees who prefer the unhurried pace of unscheduled tours, the city of Lowell offers a number of nearby attractions including American History Textile Museum, New England Quilt Museum, Revolving Museum, and Whistler House Museum of Art. While each of these local sites has their own admission fees, the Lowell National Historic Park pass included in your registration package will enable you to use the trolley system to get there.

Extra Fare Tours

In addition to the Lowell National Historic Park tour included in each registration package, there are several extra fare non-rail tours being offered. These tours will give you, and any others traveling with you, the opportunity to experience some the best sights and sounds of the area.

Boston Tour
  Duck Boats, Freedom Trail, Quincy Market and more

Thursday morning our motor coach heads into Boston for a day on land & sea, accompanied the entire day by a professional tour guide!  Tour the Freedom Trail including the Old State House, site of the Boston Massacre, the Granary Burial Ground, & the North End with a walk by the home of Paul Revere and the Old North Church, where the lanterns were hung to signal his midnight ride. Then at 10 AM, we will board the Boston Duck Tour (an authentic, renovated World War II amphibious landing vehicle). See the highlights of Boston: from the golden-domed State House to Bunker Hill and TD Banknorth Garden; from the Boston Common to the Big Dig; from Government Center to fashionable Newbury Street and the Prudential Tower. Then, just when you think you've seen it all, there's more!  It's time for "Splashdown" as your ConDUCKtor splashes your DUCK right into the Charles River for a breathtaking view of the Boston & Cambridge skylines, the kind of view you just can't get anywhere else!  After your duck tour, we’ll continue touring with stops at Bunker Hill Monument and "Old Ironsides", the USS Constitution, oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy.  You will have time for lunch on your own and a little shopping at Fanueil Hall/Quincy Market before the tour continues in the afternoon, ending back at our hotel around 3:30PM. Tour requires some walking.

Liberty Ride
    Minute Man National Historic Park

On Thursday morning, we will board our motor coach at the hotel and head to Lexington, MA, Birthplace of the American Revolution, accompanied on the entire tour by a professional tour guide! We’ll visit the Minute Man NHP Visitor Center and view their film, "The Road to the Revolution", and travel down Battle Road to walk in the footsteps of the minute men as you cross the Old North Bridge.

Next stop is Hartwell Tavern, gathering place of the colonial militia, and then we move on to Concord, to see the sites that inspired literary greats, Thoreau, Longfellow, Emerson, Hawthorne and generations of Alcott's, as well as Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, the final resting place of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott. Also buried here is David Chester French, sculptor of the famous Minuteman statue, as well as the seated Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. Arrive back at the hotel about 1 PM.  No lunch stop is included in this tour and tour requires some walking.