Worcester is the largest city in central Massachusetts and the second largest in New England, sitting about 45 miles west of Boston. It has a scrappier, less polished feel than the capital — an old industrial city that has reinvented itself through education and medicine rather than finance or tech.
Nine colleges and universities call Worcester home, which gives the city a lively, transient energy and keeps the restaurant and bar scene healthier than you might expect. The stretch of Shrewsbury Street on the east side is the closest thing Worcester has to a dining destination, with Italian-American joints, neighborhood spots, and a few more ambitious kitchens packed into a few blocks.
The Worcester Art Museum punches well above its weight for a city this size, with a genuine encyclopedic collection including medieval armor and Impressionist paintings. The EcoTarium is worth an afternoon if you have children in tow. And for a certain kind of traveler, the visible traces of Worcester's industrial past — the mills, the canal remnants, the dense triple-deckers — are as interesting as any formal attraction.