Every travel writer will tell you to visit New England in October. They are right about the foliage. What they leave out is that you will be sharing that foliage with three million other people who read the same articles, all driving up Route 100 in Vermont at the same speed as you.
Boston in April is the sleeper season. The city is coming back to life after a hard winter, the Public Garden’s tulips are ridiculous, the college students are jubilant and slightly deranged from having survived February, and the tourists are not there yet. Hotel rates are dramatically lower. Restaurant reservations open the week you ask for them. The Red Sox home opener is happening and people are wearing shorts and coats simultaneously in a way that is only Boston.
Walk the Freedom Trail. Do the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum on a rainy afternoon. Get a beer at Trillium’s rooftop. Take the T out to Cambridge and eat at any restaurant on Mass Ave. The city will feel emptier than it does in October, which is exactly the point. New England is at its best when the light is coming back, not when the leaves are falling. Come in April. Bring a jacket.