7 Reasons To Visit Philadelphia – The City Of Brotherly Love

What do you look for when deciding to travel to a city? Food, culture, architecture or history? If it’s all of those then you should consider heading down to Philadelphia. It’s the fifth biggest city in the U.S. but I’m sure it’s not on the top of the list when Canadians are looking for a city to visit. If you’re looking for some reasons on why you should visit the birthplace of the country then here are seven reasons why you should consider Philadelphia for your next getaway.

Independence Hall

Philadelphia Food Scene

Mention Philadelphia to many people and the first thing that pops into their mind is the famous Philly Cheesesteak sandwich. What’s not to love: top sirloin steak cooked on a flat top and served up in a soft pillowy roll with peppers, onions, and provolone cheese (I’m drooling as I type this). While this may be the city’s best known export the food scene in Philadelphia encompasses a whole lot more. You have restaurants that range from the upscale to street food spots to markets that’ll supply you with everything you need to stock your kitchen. One of the hottest trends in the city these days are vegan restaurants, so much so that Philadelphia is now considered a vegan dining destination with places like V Street and Miss Rachel’s Pantry being among the more popular ones. Philadelphia also has over 300+ BYOB restaurants with many of them featuring sidewalk seating similar to what you’ll find in European cities. Apart from the restaurants, there is always a food festival happening somewhere in the city. If you’re going to be there this year here’s a list of food festivals that are  happening in 2018.

Mural Art Tour

I’ve been to a lot of museums and seen quite a bit of artwork, but I prefer street art. There’s something about the very creative way that these street artists use their art to tell the story of their community in a single spray painted piece. In 1986 The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program was founded to focus the efforts of graffiti artists into creating new murals all over the city, and since then they’ve created over 3,000 pieces, making this the World’s Largest Outdoor Art Gallery and having Philadelphia be recognized as the “City of Murals”. Public and private tours are offered and they usually take about 90 minutes each. Visitors can decide on which type of tour they’d like, whether it’s a themed or a location tour.  All the details of the tours can be found here.

One of the many murals around Philadelphia

Public Gardens

Philadelphia is home to some fantastic public gardens each boasting their own claim to fame. A few miles outside of downtown you’ll find the 1077 acre Longwood Gardens which recently underwent a $90M makeover to bring in modern technology, new lighting and a variety of newly choreographed water displays. Head over to Southwest Philly to visit a National Historic Landmark, Bartram’s Gardens. In Chestnut Hill you can find North America’s only fernery: Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania. With all these green wonders, it’s no wonder that Philadelphia is also known as America’s Garden Capital.

Morris Arboretum

Museums, Museums, Museums

The Philadelphia Museum Of Art is one of the largest in the country and houses rare pieces of art from artists such as Cezanne, Rogier van der Weyden and Philadelphia’s own Thomas Eakins. On the other hand they have the Please Touch Museum which was the first museum in the nation focused on families with children ages seven and younger and where they encourage you to get handsy with the art. If you’re looking for something completely different you could also head over to The Stoogeum where you’ll find all things related to, yep, you guessed it, The Three Stooges.

Philadelphia Museum Of Art

Craft Distilleries

This one is for the parents out there who want a little time without the kids. For years Philadelphia has had a healthy beer brewing reputation but over the past few years small, independently own liquor distilleries have been popping up. These distilleries produce a whole range of high quality products from rums to gins to whisky. As a matter of fact, Manatawny Still Works is winning medals left, right and centre for producing some of the country’s best whisky. La Columbe Distillery is doing something a little different by producing a coffee infused rum, two of my favorite things in one product! And then you have Rowhouse Spirits that’s run by master Dean Brown. This distillery is the definition of micro-distillers by producing their liquors in tiny batches of only 100 bottles at a time. The great thing about these distilleries is that you can arrange for a tour or just go in for a tasting.

Walkable City

Walking is the best way to see a city and Philadelphia is a city where you can get your daily steps in. In 2017 Philadelphia was rated as the 5th most walkable city in the U.S. which means that there are quite a few neighbourhoods where it’s best to really explore by foot. The Avenue Of The Arts is basically the heart of the city. Along this avenue you will find museums, music venues, restaurants, universities, hotels and a whole lot more. City Centre West is the most walkable neighbourhood and will allow you to explore Rittenhouse Square, the Mutter Museum and the Schuylkill River Trail. Over in the Washington Square neighbourhood you will find many restaurants and also be able to walk over to Independance Hall. Exploring on your own is a lot of fun, but you can also sign up for some free walking tours where you can have a totally different experience with a knowledgeable guide leading you.

Festivals

Love jazz? They have a festival for that. Love food? They have many festivals for that. Looking for art, yep the City Of Brotherly Love has got one of those also. As you can see Philadelphia loves their festivals and some of the biggest ones happening this year are the LGBT Pride Parade and Festival, The Philadelphia Chinese Lantern Festival and the massive Made In America Music Festival. These are just a small fraction of all the events that take place but if you’d like a more complete list click here.

Bonus

I couldn’t just end this without giving you some bonus places you need to visit. Yes you can go see the Rocky Statue and run up The Rocky Steps , but you didn’t need me to tell you about those. If you want something a little out of the ordinary then you should head to Pizza Brain which is a pizza shop but it also holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s largest pizza collection. If pizza isn’t your thing then You should head over Fairmount Park and explore the Cave Of Kelpius where it’s said that this is where America’s first doomsday cult awaited the end of the world.

This year there’s a lot happening in the city so if you’re just thinking about visiting The City Of Brotherly Love, now might be the perfect time to do so.