First, the easy answer…

Yes it does get hot and muggy in the summer…but it’s not as bad as some places in the south like the Carolinas. Also, it’s not a constant…it’s usually the end of the summer when Beantown is at its most muggy (muggiest?)

Now for the more difficult question, where to stay for a few weeks or a month…

If you want a true Boston experience, I’d recommend staying somewhere in Back Bay. It’s right in the middle of everything, close to the Public Gardens and the Commons (our equivalent to Central Park), Newbury Street (home to some of the greatest hangouts and restaurants the area has to offer) and Fenway Park (need I say more about that?)

Other recommendations would be the North End (our Little Italy)...you’d swear you crossed the street and ended up in Europe; Beacon Hill which is very well-to-do but also home to the Beacon Hill Pub (IMO, home of the best foosball table in Boston) or Brookline, which isn’t in Boston-Proper but it has plenty to do (Coolidge Corner Theater, too many parks to count and some of the best sushi you’ll find @ Fugakyu).

Where to stay is a tough question. If money is no issue, you could probably find a place to sublet. However, housing in Boston is hideously expensive. My husband lived in a studio in the Fenway (not downtown) that was 500 SF, and it was $1,000 a month without utilities.

With all due respect to scribble2, if you want to stay in the Back Bay or Beacon Hill (both lovely, posh sections of town) you’d probably pay 50% more than anywhere else because they are what everyone thinks of when they think of Boston apartments. Stylish. Besides that, I don’t think you’d have an easy time finding a sublet in either area. People who live there tend to stay there—especially in Beacon Hill, which has bigger apartments and more families. You’d be better off (if you want to live in the downtown) looking closer to the universities—Hemenway St., Kenmore Square, or the Fenway. I don’t want to be discouraging—just realistic. Boston is a wonderful city, but the college students usually don’t live in Back Bay or Beacon Hill apartments, and they’re the ones who would be subletting in the summer.

If you want to go outside of downtown, the further out you go, the cheaper the rent gets. Things start to look brighter even in Cambridge, definitely in Arlington. The key is, the further away from the T (subway) you are, the better the rent is. Newton is beautiful. My best suggestion to you is check out craigslist.com.

As far as the heat… New England does get hot in the summer. Of course, how hot you think it is depends on where you’re from. The temp hovers around 80-85 F. from Mid June until Late September even into October. Downtown tends to be hotter than the burbs because of all of the concrete, and it does tend to be pretty humid, but Boston is near the shore, so you can get to the beach if you have a car.

I hope that helped!

I don’t think it gets really hot and muggy here until late July/August. However, it is unpredictable at times—as the saying goes, if you don’t like the weather in New England, wait five minutes!

I agree that Beacon Hill and Back Bay are probably too expensive to consider. If you want to be near downtown, maybe try near BU/BC (Allston, Brighton). Or check out Cambridge, Somerville, or Arlington—they tend to have college students too who might want to sublet.

I don’t have a lot of suggestions for where to stay, if you’re looking for a B&B or hotel or something like that. You might want to check http://boston.craigslist.org/, though; there are lots of places available for rent and I’m sure you could find a room for a short period of time there.

As far as general neighbourhoods, I’m very fond of Jamaica Plain. It’s on the Orange Line (and bus lines, notably the 39 bus) so accessible by public transit. It’s much more multicultural (i.e., less segregated, less homogeneous) than most of the other neighbourhoods in Boston. And it has lots and lots of green space. When I lived there, I was walking distance to Jamaica Pond, where people walk their dogs, go jogging, and rent rowboats, to the Arnold Arboretum (http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/), and to Franklin Park, and if I didn’t mind a long walk, even to Franklin Park Zoo.

You’d certainly be happy in the other neighbourhoods mentioned, too, though (as well as Cambridge, especially Harvard, Central, or Kendall Squares, or Somerville, especially Porter or Davis Squares).