Charles River Canoe & Kayak

You can paddle a kayak or canoe in the heart of Boston and Cambridge.

You’ll have stunning city views as you mix with the sail boats on the Charles River and glide past Beacon Hill, the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, MIT, Harvard, Boston University and the Museum of Science. There’s also the Citgo sign, the State House dome and the Hancock and Prudential buildings.

The people-powered craft are available for rental from Charles River Canoe and Kayak at five Boston-area locations along the Charles. The nine-mile, lower-basin stretch of the river has very little current.  There are also kayak tours for all ability levels.

Non-tour, individual rental prices include single adult kayak for $15 an hour or $60 per day; a quad kayak for four, costing $22 an hour or $88 per day; a kids' kayak, which rents for $7 an hour, $28 per day; or standard canoes that go for $16 an hour or $64 per day and seat two to three adults. Rates include paddles and life jackets.

As if the skyline views weren’t enough, special barbeque kayak tours can be arranged so that catered ribs and fixings await you at the end of water play.

Three-hour barbeque tours – or just the boats -- can be booked at the firm’s small Boston riverfront boathouse (617-462-2513) at a bend in the Charles River near Storrow Drive at 1100 Soldiers Field Rd. Or you can choose the Kendall Square landing in Cambridge at 500 Broad Canal St‎. (617-492-0941).

Barbeque is catered by Redbones, the long-established down-home rib joint in Somerville’s Davis Square. Reservations for the barbeque package have to be made 24 hours in advance to allow for ordering the food. At Soldiers Field Road boathouse, near the Harvard Coliseum, barbeque-tour cost is $63 per and includes guiding, kayak rental, food and beverages.

At the T-accessible [Kendall/MIT Red-Line station] Cambridge location in Kendall Square, the cost is $75, including guiding, kayak rental, food, and beverages. The Kendall Square landing, is closer to the mouth of the Charles River Basin and hard by the Longfellow Bridge to Boston. 

A two-hour Boston Skyline Tour from the Kendall Square location is $55 for an adult, including guide, kayak rental and food and beverages. Children 8 to 15 (with an adult) are $49.

Kayaks and canoes are also available upriver at suburban locations.  At close-in Newton, boats are at 2401 Commonwealth Ave (Route 30) in the Auburndale neighborhood.  And in Natick, there’s a branch by Lake Cochituate State Park at 25 Commonwealth Rd. 

HelloBoston Tip: In Concord, some 20 miles west of Boston, it’s an easy paddle from the 1892 South Bridge Boat House to Old North Bridge, where in 1775 British soldiers fought colonial Minutemen. Canoes and kayaks can be rented at the boat house and you can explore the Assabet, Sudbury and Concord rivers.  South Bridge Boat House, 496 Main St. (Rt. 62), Concord. 978 369 9438 (click here).

- by Dan Sheridan, Boston Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)

Dan Sheridan

Dan Sheridan is an editor, reporter and media specialist with a background in newspapers, magazines and publishing. He has reported from Tokyo, Singapore and Bangkok and wrote Access Boston, the popular guidebook, from 2002 to 2008.