Cambridge Innovation Trail Guided Exploration Experience

Proof that history is not just for the past! From anti-aging technology to gene-editing, the newest discoveries coming out of Cambridge are building on the historical inventions of things as diverse as woven fire hoses and the microwave oven. Guides from TripAdvisor's #1 attraction in Cambridge will do their best to blow your mind as we invite you to explore the history-makers working in Kendall Square right now. See which of today's cutting-edge discoveries will be in the history books of the future.

Meeting Point

50 Broadway

50 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

Look for your guide at the Kendal Square Marriott, if you have a hard time finding them, give us a call.

What's included:

• Fun, Interactive and Engaging in-person guide!

Not included:

• Access inside buildings. Most of these spaces are active labs, so we do not enter these spaces.

What to expect:

Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Entrepreneur Walk of Fame

321 Main St, , Cambridge, 02142-1027, Massachusetts

Walk along the Entrepreneur Walk of Fame with us and get familiar with some of the names and stories that we'll explore along the Innovation Trail

5 minutes

CIC Cambridge @ 245 Main

245 Main St, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

Check out the Start-Up Hub (CIC), formerly the Cambridge Incubator, founded by MIT Business School graduate Tim Rowe.

5 minutes

MIT Museum

314 Main Street, Gambrill Center, Building E-28, Cambridge, 02142, Massachusetts

Reopened in OCtober of 2022 the MIT Museum showcases the Institutes place on the cutting edge of tech advancement.

10 minutes

355 Main St

355 Main St, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

The Cambrige office of Google, learn about the city's relationship with tech giants, and the creativity to come out of these doors, like Android

5 minutes

Stata Center

Vasar St, MIT, , Cambridge, Massachusetts

Inside the Stata Center at MIT are labs focused on computer science, artificial intelligence, and robotics (they gave birth to iRobot Corp., maker of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner), and a small, ground-floor exhibit about student “hacks,” or pranks, through the years.

10 minutes

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Merkin Building, 415 Main St, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard seeks to better understand the roots of disease and narrow the gap between new biological insights and creating impact for patients.

10 minutes

Cambridge

Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Human Genome Project at the Whitehead Institute. The Whitehead Institute was created in 1982 by philanthropist Jack Whitehead and David Baltimore, an MIT professor and Nobel Prize winner. A key part of the vision was assembling a supergroup of the world’s top biomedical researchers in one building, and eliminating “virtually any impediment to their pursuit of scientific discovery,” supplying ample funding and the most sophisticated lab equipment, but limited bureaucracy. (It’s an independent nonprofit affiliated with MIT.)

5 minutes

225 Binney St

225 Binney St, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

Biogen, the Biotech Trailblazer, Hear about its founding, by two Nobel Prize winners, and its history of Innovation.

5 minutes

NE35

NE35, 145 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA

Meet the Internet Accelerator, Akamai. The start-up's original idea was to set up a network of servers around the world to cache, or store, content closer to where people wanted to access it—making everything show up faster on web browsers. Some of the company’s first successful large-scale demonstrations, in 1999, involved the delivery of a movie trailer for “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” and ESPN’s March Madness college basketball coverage.

5 minutes

Draper

The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., 555 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Walk down Broadway and take a left at Technology Square. At 555 is Draper Labs, where you’ll see a giant moon hanging in the lobby. Among its greatest achievements are the guidance computers that enabled Apollo spacecraft to successfully travel to and land on the moon. One of the software developers who wrote the code that ran these guidance computers was Margaret Hamilton, who later founded two companies and is credited as one of the people who defined the field of “software engineering.”

10 minutes

Moderna

200 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Founded in 2010 to explore the potential of modified RNA molecules (hence the name “mod-RNA”) to treat diseases or serve as a vaccine.

5 minutes

LabCentral

700 Main St, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

At one time home to Davenport Car Works, Walworth Manufacturing Company, Polaroid and today, LabCentral, Few buildings have housed so many inovators over the course of their lifetime.

5 minutes

810 Main St

810 Main St, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

here were also at one point 66 different candy companies in Cambridge, making everything from candy hearts for Valentine’s day to Squirrel Nut Zippers to lemon drops. (The Fig Newton cookie was also invented in Cambridge, in 1891—even though they were named for the nearby city of Newton.) This building is the last operating candy factory in Cambridge, owned by Tootsie Brands. The company unfortunately doesn’t offer tours, in part because candy companies are notoriously secretive about the equipment and processes they use to make candy—“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” wasn’t too far off base. Inside, they make 26 million pieces of candy a day. Why is that number so high? The factory is the only place in the world that Sugar Babies and Junior Mints are made—both of which are small little morsels.

5 minutes

The Innovation Trail

30 School St, Boston, 02108-5101, Massachusetts

The Innovation Trail is a way to experience, learn about, and be inspired by four centuries of world-changing breakthroughs from Boston. It focuses on the history of science, medicine, entrepreneurship, and technology in Boston and Cambridge.

Pass by without stopping