Every May, after my last final is submitted and the exhaustion of the semester finally begins to settle, I celebrate in the same way and buy myself a ticket for a Boston Duck Tour.
I know the criticisms. The duck boats are loud, touristy and a little overpriced. They clog the streets around the Common, and the captains’ jokes can be aggressively corny.
For many Bostonians, duck boats are something to roll your eyes at – a gimmick for visitors wearing Red Sox hats and holding giant iced coffees.
But I love them anyway.
Every tour follows nearly the same route. The same historical anecdotes get repeated. Tourists laugh at the same jokes. And every single time, when the boat finally splashes into the Charles River, the passengers erupt into applause as we have just accomplished something extraordinary.
Honestly, maybe we have.
As students, many of us experience Boston primarily through stress. We rush through the city on the Green Line while checking notifications. We associate Fenway with internships and Longwood with clinical placements. Boston becomes less of an adventure hub and more of a backdrop for productivity.
The duck boats are different.
For ninety minutes, you simply sit, listen and look around. You notice details that are easy to miss when you are sprinting to class: the way the skyline reflects off the river, the tourists waving from the sidewalk, the strange charm of hearing a crowd of strangers quack in unison.
The tours encourage open enthusiasm, which accomplishes something that I think Boston often struggles with. This can be an oddly self-serious city, where we pride ourselves on being unimpressed. Loving something “cheesy” too openly can feel embarrassing.
But the duck boats embrace cheesiness completely. They don’t care whether they seem cool. They are amphibious vehicles driving through one of the oldest cities in the country while a tour guide in a fake captain’s hat makes Revolutionary War jokes. The entire premise is ridiculous, and that is part of the appeal.
Not every meaningful experience has to be intellectual or sophisticated. Sometimes joy can simply be loud and silly.
The duck boat has become my personal marker that the year is over. It is a reminder that I survived another year. I made it through the deadlines, presentations and finals. Now, for one afternoon, I get to be a tourist in my own city again.
So yes, the duck boats are touristy. Yes, they are a little expensive. Yes, I will absolutely continue buying a ticket every finals season.
And yes, some traditions are worth defending.
