Is four nights too little for a US trip?

[tabgales]

We are wanting to do a city trip to Boston and can do four or five nights. Hotels are super expensive and eating out looks very high too. We can fly direct from us in Edinburgh. 7hrs out and 6hrs back. We’d do economy.

Would you do it for 4 nights?

I would do east coast US for four nights for sure
New York can be a weekend trip
i would go for it

Have a look at air bnb rather than hotels as they could work cheaper so can go for longer. I personally would consider 4 nights as a waste of money when you can get more for your money elsewhere, but air bnb might be worth while.
It would also save you money on taxes that would normally be added to your hotel charges plus you wouldn't have to continuously pay tips to staff

Personally I would be reluctant to travel that far (13 hours in total on a plane in economy) for just four/five nights. There is a five hour time difference and it would take me a couple of days to fully recover from the jet lag each way (but you may cope with this much better). Boston is a notoriously expensive city (not just for tourists) but an added expense is that it is important to have very good travel insurance, with full health coverage. Plus you need to factor in the cost of tips (20-25%).

I would also be a little hesitant to travel to the US at the moment because of the political situation and increasingly robust boarder security arrangements.

Yes. I’ve been to Boston and New York in the past for just two nights each time, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that but four gives you ample time to enjoy. After 4/5 days it gets seriously expensive anyway

DH travels to work in the US (west coast) regularly for this length trip, admittedly that’s further but the body clock shock is brutal. You’ll be just about ok while there, but be prepared for it to hit you like a train when you get back. Don’t just expect to land back in the UK, feel fine and go back to work the next day.

For the East coast it’s fine.

I had no issues with jetlag going to Boston. I stayed in an AirB&B in Back Bay as the hotels were so expensive (even 10 years ago) especially as a solo traveller.

Great place, very walkable.

Wouldn’t do it for 4 minutes, frankly.
Hth.

PiL live in PA so in the East. We sometimes do 5 nights but only because they are a 5 hour drive from NY or DC. If they were nearer to either of those then we'd only do 4 nights.

Yes I would and we did New York for 5 last year. The jet lag is awful when you come back though. If I was to do it again, I would land back on a Wednesday, stay awake all day, work Thursday and Friday then have the weekend to hopefully get through it. When we did New York, we landed on a Sunday so straight back to a full week or work and school. None of us were great.

I’ve done similar in the past. When living in London, I went to New York for 5 nights. I took melatonin on the plane to force myself to sleep, which helped with jet lag and having energy both sides of the trip.
Boston is an interesting place to visit, and keeping the trip short will put a limit on extortionate spending. Go and enjoy!

I’ve done East coat USA for four nights, got up early every morning and went to bed early every evening, and managed to see quite a bit when there. Very doable and the jet lag was nowhere like going. To the West Coast. It’s better to go for the 4 nights you can afford than not at all IMO.

I'd prefer a 7 hour flight on a bigger plane with all the perks of that to a 5+ hour flight to Egypt for example on a standard no frills flight. So yes I would (and have).

Boston very doable over a long weekend - go for it! Exchange rate far more favourable right now so buy your dollars pronto!

I regularly travel to Boston for work for that length of time. If you’ve any choice of flight times I find landing late afternoon/early evening best. Quick meal and then bed so even if I wake up early with the time difference I’ve had a good stretch of sleep.

4 nights is far too short for Boston normally. With the orange monster in charge it is 4 nights too long.

We did four nights in NYC, flying back overnight on the fifth. The time difference worked in our favour - we were up early every morning and did loads of sight seeing before the crowds and then we were too tired in the evening to go out for big expensive dinners so saved money that way!

Four local nights top end of the Eastern seaboard (e.g. New York, Boston) should be fine.

As PPs have said the time change on arrival can work in your favour.

The return flight if overnight can OTOH be painful and fatiguing.

If you really need to avoid that problem one workaround is to get a daylight flight eastbound - they are not that common but do exist, both BA and American Airlines have flights that leave JFK for London around breakfast time (local), get into London in the evening UK time.

I used to frequently do work trips to Boston and to San diego. The former is much, much easier imo - except the red eye on the return is a bit brutal so ideally I’d plan a day off after (instead of travelling from Heathrow to Yorkshire and rocking up for an afternoons work half dazed … I was young then!).

but i guess anyone who is typically fazed by the clocks changing or a trip to eg Greece then you might struggle.

@ErrolTheDragon

Yep agree.

The Europe/Uk > West Coast US time change is nasty and I wouldn"t consider doing that sort of journey for a four night break unless there was no alternative.

Uk> Eastern seaboard is by comparison pretty benign and certainly UK>Boston is almost shorthaul flying territory.

This 🖕Jetlag coming back awful.

We’ve just done East coast for two weeks and omg the jet lag is horrific!!

Nobody in Boston likes him either.

We did Boston and NYC for 7 days last year. It was enough time to see a fair few things.

That's possibly because you had more than enough time to acclimatise to US Eastern time..

Just for a bit of perspective (and maybe to explain why there's a possible lack of sympathy in some posts) is that it's not that unheard of for crew at some airlines to do as many as 5 uk/Europe <> eastern seaboard round trips ( i.e ten individual flights) a month to places like Boston and New York.

Just about the only area where they are better off "jet lag wise " than holidaymakers is that they usually only nightstop the US side and so don't acclimatise, other than that the rosters can be horrific.