Philadelphia Travel Guide (and day trip ideas!)

We spent a whirlwind 3 days in Pennsylvania. During those few days we drove all over the state and experienced a lot of fun and interesting things. In this post, I've put together the perfect one day travel guide for Philadelphia as well as a few other day trip ideas.

Philadelphia:

Make sure to start out your day as early as possible. We chose to park at the National Constitution Center for the day. Your first stop should be to the Visitor's Center just across the street from the Constitution Center to pick up your tickets to see Independence Hall. 

After your tickets are picked up, we suggest going right to the Liberty Bell first thing. The line gets longer as the day goes on. When we went shortly after it opened, we didn't have to wait in line at all. Also when we got to see the Liberty Bell, we were able to easily get around it and have good views. 

If you have early tickets for Independence Hall, head over there right after you finish the Liberty Bell. You need to be at the security line about 20 minutes before the time on your tickets. Check out more info on Independence Hall here. After your tour, there are a few other free tours in the same building that do not require tickets that we highly recommend you visit. 

After Independence Hall, make sure to head back over to the National Constitution Center. There are lots of fun and interactive exhibits. 

The rest of the afternoon, you can spend at Franklin Court. There is a really fun museum, a print shop and a few other exhibits about Benjamin Franklin. We found this to be a true hidden gem in Philadelphia. 

If you have time at the end of your day, make sure to head over to see the LOVE Statue. Usually it is housed at LOVE Park (JFK Plaza), but while they are renovating the park it has been temporarily re-located to Dilworth Park. Reading Market is in the same area and is also a great stop!

Other Day Trips:

If you're in Philadelphia for more than a day, here are a few other things that we did while we were there that we highly recommend you take the time to visit. 

Valley Forge

Valley Forge is just outside of Philadelphia and it is such a great stop! It doesn't take more than a few hours to go through and is so beautiful and full of history. Check out our experience at Valley Forge here. 

Gettysburg

Gettysburg is another beautiful and historic place that you could spend all day at. There is a beautiful museum and fun experiences as well as the battleground itself. If you finish visiting the grounds and museum, check out the cute little tourist town of Gettysburg. Check out our full review here. 

Susquehanna

Located in northern Pennsylvania, Susquehanna is a small town that you have to want to go to to get there. If you are LDS (or even if you're not) going to Susquehanna and seeing the Priesthood Restoration Site is an amazing experience. This was one of my favorite things we did during our trip to Pennsylvania. The surrounding area is absolutely beautiful and the site is absolutely amazing. You can see what we thought by reading our post here.

Visiting Valley Forge

While we were on our quick trip to Pennsylvania, we made our first stop at Valley Forge. It was a beautiful site with an amazing feeling. We had a great morning there and definitely suggest that everyone take a chance to go see it.

How to Get There:

Valley Forge is pretty easy to get to. Because it is a historically significant site, there are signs that direct you pretty easily to the site. Once you're there, we suggest starting the auto tour, especially if you get there before the visitor's center opens. You can find a map for the tour here. 

What You Will See:

We started our day with the auto tour. We saw a lot of sites along the way, while we didn't stop at every single one, we did stop at a few that we felt had the most significance.

Redoubt

This was the first stop we made (stop #2 on the route). Redoubt had a small parking lot to leave your car and then you cross the street and you can see inside the cabins that were made by the men who camped at Valley Forge. If you listen to the audio guide by dialing the phone number and entering in the correct code, it gives you some nice information about the history of this site. 

National Memorial Arch

The National Memorial Arch was stop #3 on the auto tour. We parked and were able to walk up and around the arch. We were able to learn about some of the symbolism and the history of the arch by listening to the audio guide. 

 

Varnum's Quarters

Stop #8 on the tour and again, we parked and got out of our car, then we headed down a short path to see Varnum's home. During the summer months there are tours available of the home. Sadly when we were there a few days after they had closed the tours for the season. 

Washington Memorial Chapel

This was the last stop on the tour and it was our favorite place. It has beautiful grounds and has the cutest little chapel. It reminded us a lot of the chapels we went to in Europe.

Visitor's Center

At the visitor's center, there are a few exhibits you can look at to give you more history and context of Valley Forge. There is also a movie that you can see. The film starts every hour and the theater is outside of the actual visitor's center. You just go upstairs and head to the left and you will see a building that has signs for the theater. 

Sum Up:

Valley Forge is a great historic site that only takes a few hours to tour. You can take longer though if you want to. There are lots of trails to walk and bike on that go all over the park. It is such a beautiful area and definitely worth the time to stop.



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