Blue Hills Trailside Museum

Always great for hiking and picnics! Beautiful views on good days!
Museum and small zoo.

This is a great location for kids and the family. The kids can see rare animals , tun through the woods, learn, and be creative.

Love this place, visited several times with my 2 children who enjoy this easy hike. We met there with 3 friends and their children a group of 12! It's just lovely and the view of Boston was the best of any day I've visited previously. The kids ranged in age from 5 to 14- they all enjoyed themselves! Bring snacks for a treat at the top!

What a truly excellent museum inside and out! We enjoyed the Birds of Prey program with Chris. The museum's exhibits are top notch. Everyone was helpful and friendly which made for a great day. Thank you, Trailside!

It's a great place to take kids. It's smaller but nice to run around and it's free. The other nice thing is you can just go for a height right after seeing the animals if you'd like.

Easy 20 Minute Hike to the Blue Hill Mountain Summit from the museum! No dogs are allowed in the Museum, but in the trail they are allowed. Kid friendly museum and hike. Cellphone signal throughout and lots gas stations nearby.

I love both the trails and the animals. The tower at the summit has picnic tables and shade for a nice lunch stop. We hung out by the museum and watched the foxes for a long time. So cute!

Great place to go with kids or anyone that loves nature and wildlife. Lots of different types of animals to see and learn about. Many hiking trails to venture. The museum has good regional native cultural artifacts and animal displays. Free parking. Inexpensive to get in, but free for Audubon Society members and their guests! Gift shop. Bonus is that $ spent at the Trailside helps wildlife and habitat conservation.

I love this place it's super peaceful! All the animals are beautiful, I love feeding the ducks, birds and chipmunks! It's a great place to have lunch! It's clean. Can't say enough good things about the Trailside Museum :) Thank you!

Excellent educational facility to learn about local wildlife. Afterwards take a walk to the observatory for the great views. Highly recommend for families or just a easy day trip for Boston City folk.

Awesome for family. Kids will love it. Beautiful little zoo on the outside.

They have more animals now, it's literally a little zoo, they have so much stuff for what seems at first such a little place, it's incredible, it's also very cheap.

Never expected that a small place would hold so many interesting animals. Worth the visit! Bald eagles, Red tailed Hawk, Turkey vulture, Snowy Owls, Raven, river Otter, Foxes....all available for a close up look. And of course a good place for photography too!

The museum is small, but gives a lot of insight into the local nature, it's also at the beginning of the red trail which leads to some amazing views of Boston and surroundings

Great museum. There were live animals throughout which was a surprise, however their enclosures looked quite clean and well kept. Lovely to learn about these lil critters. Definitely kid friendly, lots to look at and read.

It's a nice place for kids. About 20 different animals to see, both outside (free to all) and inside (adults $5, kids $4, I think). Owls, raptors, otter, and turtles outside. Owls, snakes, rats, and lots of stuffed animals inside. Displays include animal sounds, skull matching puzzle, climate learning, and live bees.

However good, I think all places like this should revisit their policies regarding live animal displays. Captivity is wrong, especially wrong for intelligent creatures. It's hard to see a bald eagle behind bars. I still rank it high because it accomplishes its goals for kids, but I personally think we have to move past this way of interacting with nature.

Is cool, but keeping the national bird in confined space is not cool. Unless was injured or something that would not allow it to survive in the wild.

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Edit, added.

Maybe free the national bird, but feed it there. As scheduled feeding, passing a healthy diet of fish and red meats. Not sure if it will be capable of hunting on its own, and it should be smart to keep coming back.

It's often important to get introduced to the location you're visiting, and I found the Trailside Museum a great place to do so for Blue Hills Reservation in terms of location, information presented and staff helpfulness.

The museum is the center for public interpretation of the reservation and a convenient place to enter as it has ample parking and 716 Shuttle MBTA shuttle access about a 15 minute hike from the top of Great Blue Hill where you can access the Skyline Trail, climb Eliot Observation Tower, and visit the Weather Observatory.

Outside, there are spaces for wildlife that could not survive without human intervention, and inside, there is more such wildlife and information on the hills' human history. The interior is well-themed for children but was not un-interesting to engage with as an adult.

While I was at the museum, my camera batteries died, and my day's plan to document the visitable history of the Blue Hills would have been completely ruined if not for one but TWO staff members finding me batteries (By the time I was done in the museum I'm sure they wished they had given me the ones to the frog machine). It was a huge help, and it seemed like they really want people to enjoy their visit to the reservation. The only caveat was that I would return them when I returned from hiking, but I returned too late to give them back directly! I did put them in a box outside labeled "Passport to Nature" though, so hopefully the batteries were found and the staff knows their generous help was appreciated!

Enjoy!

Wonderful work the staff do for these animals which cannot be returned to the wild due to permanent injury or their inability to fend for themselves. Whether a raptor missing an eye or having a permanent wing injury, the Bald Eagle with nerve damage due to lead poisoning, orphaned deer and foxes, surrendered pets like turtles or missing a foot, the list goes on... The staff are very knowledgeable and immensely caring of their 'charges.' I watched the keepers cleaning the habitats and putting out food and water, and I enjoyed a very pleasant "my questions/her answers" with Leah.

Very wonderful indoor and outdoor nature museum. The indoor museum is a little small, but it has a lot of stuff inside to see.