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Things to Do in Amherst, Massachusetts: See Tripadvisor's 7,686 traveler reviews and photos of Amherst tourist attractions. Find what to do today, this weekend, or in June. We have reviews of the best places to see in Amherst. Visit top-rated & must-see attractions.
- Mead Art Museum
Things to Do in Amherst. Mead Art Museum. See all things to...
- Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
#3 of 37 things to do in Amherst. Art Museums. Closed now....
- Mead Art Museum
- Emily Dickinson Museum
- Amherst College
- Hampshire College
- Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
- UMass Amherst
- Amherst Center
- Yiddish Book Center
- Beneski Museum of Natural History
- Mead Art Museum
- Mount Holyoke Range State Park
The birthplace and lifelong home of the poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is just east of Amherst Center on Main St. After childhood and a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Dickinson rarely left this building, seldom greeted guests and later in life hardly left her bedroom. So visiting the Federal-style Dickinson Homestead (1813) you’ll g...
The third-oldest institution of higher education in the state blends seamlessly with downtown Amherst. Amherst College is compact, enrolling fewer than 2,000 undergraduates each year, and prestigious, as one of the highest ranking liberal arts schools in the world. Among the alumni are six Nobel Prize laureates and a President of the United States ...
Established in 1970 as an experiment in higher education, Hampshire College has a campus with a beautiful setting in the south of Amherst. Here the peaks of the Holyoke Range are on the horizon to the south. Hampshire College continues to do things its own way, with an unorthodox curriculum, self-directed academic concentrations, use of narrative e...
With his wife Barbara (1938-2015), the treasured children’s author and illustrator, Eric Carle (1929-2021) founded this unique museum on the Hampshire College campus in 2002. Eric Carle published more than 70 books, and is best known for The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), which has sold more than 50 million copies and been translated into 66 langu...
At almost 1,450 acres, the largest campus in the University of Massachusetts system, and the largest campus of any university in the state is less than a mile north of Amherst Center. You can take a tour or simply look around the campus on your own steam. The prevailing style here is Modernist, after a flurry of construction in the 1960s and 70s. O...
Downtown Amherst is a destination in its own right, loaded with cultural venues, sights, colorful events, independent shopping and dining. Part of that appeal comes from the adjoining Amherst College campus with its stately architecture and world-class museums. Just along Amherst Town Common there’s a global assortment of eateries, for everything f...
Also not to be missed on the Hampshire College campus is a cultural center dedicated to preserving Yiddish-language books and media. When it was founded in 1980 by the young graduate student Aaron Lansky, this was the first Yiddish museum in the world, and was set up to preserve and recover Yiddish books that were being discarded by American Jewish...
The modern Beneski Earth Sciences Building on the Amherst College campus houses three stories of exhibits, with more than 1,700 specimens on show. These extensive collections go back to the college’s earliest days in the 1820s, and many were assembled by the geologist and third college president, Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864). This goes for the incr...
The third must-visit Amherst College museum is the repository for the college’s distinguished art collection and is named for the architect William Rutherford Mead (1846-1928) who graduated in the class of 1867. Mead’s wife Olga Kilyeni Mead left his entire estate to the college, which went towards the museum’s building, designed by James Kellum Sm...
There’s striking mountain scenery in the south of Amherst courtesy of the Holyoke Range, a 9.5-mile traprock ridge running east to west. Crossed by the 114-mile Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, the range is loved for its challenging hikes and rewarding walkers with distant views from its ledges. The Mount Holyoke Range State Park contains seven miles of ...
- Pick flowers at Book & Plow Farm. Book & Plow Farm is owned by the college, and in the late summer months (July through early September), there’s usually a free, pick-your-own flower field.
- Walk through the Bird Sanctuary. The college also owns around 500 acres of land that is a wildlife sanctuary. You can get to the main section easily from the Norwottuck Rail Trail, or you can even combine this with a trip to Book & Plow and follow the trails from there (here’s a map—the main section is the cross country loop).
- Admire the view on Memorial Hill. Memorial Hill, also known as the War Memorial, has a stunning view of the Holyoke Mountain range. Sit on the benches or Adirondack chairs and have a philosophical chat with a friend, or bring a book to read.
- Visit the Emily Dickinson Museum. The Emily Dickinson Museum is the birthplace and home of this famed poet. You can explore the house on your own or take a guided tour, though you will need timed entry tickets either way.
- Amherst Town Hall. Amherst Town Hall is a beautiful historic building that you’ll want to see on your visit to the city. The red brick, sandstone, and granite structure was built in 1889 and still stands proudly over downtown Amherst.
- The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Also known as The Carle (125 W Bay Rd), this museum is named for founder and children’s book author Eric Carle.
- The Emily Dickinson Museum. The Emily Dickinson Museum (280 Main Street) is made up of the home and birthplace of poet Emily Dickinson, as well as the house next door that belonged to her brother and his family.
- The University Museum of Contemporary Art. The UMCA (Fine Arts Center, Presidents Dr) is part of UMass Amherst, which has been collecting contemporary art for over 60 years.
Things to Do in Amherst, Massachusetts: See Tripadvisor's 7,778 traveller reviews and photos of Amherst tourist attractions. Find what to do today, this weekend, or in August. We have reviews of the best places to see in Amherst. Visit top-rated & must-see attractions.
Aug 7, 2015 · Things to Do in Amherst, Massachusetts: See Tripadvisor's 7,686 traveler reviews and photos of Amherst attractions.
You’ll find plenty of things to do in Amherst MA, including wandering through museums, exploring nature, visiting shops and restaurants, and touring college campuses.
