Like most families, we have certain places we visit over and over again. One of our favorites is nearby Philadelphia. It’s an easy drive (if we time it right) and a big enough city that there are always new things to do and see.
We always have fun, but of course, our activities have changed as our young Traveler has grown from a tot to a teenager.
Here are the things our 16YO liked to do in the City of Brotherly Love, along with types and activities for younger siblings, too.
• This article is now featured on GPSmyCity.
To download it or offline reading or create a self-guided walking tour, go to Walking Tours and Articles in Philadelphia. Or read it in the app.
4 Philadelphia Hotels For Families
1. If you’ll be exploring different parts of the city, the Doubletree Philadelphia City Center is a good bet. It’s as centrally located as you can get: right in the middle of the arts district, a few blocks from both Rittenhouse Square and Reading Terminal market and midway between Logan Square and the Historic District.
It has an indoor pool, is next to a public garage with in-and-out privileges and the front desk is generous with Doubletree’s signature cookies. We had nice city views from our upper-floor room.
We’ve often stayed in the Historic District and I liked staying away. We walk more and see parts of the city we would not explore otherwise.
2. If you want to be closer to the museums than the Historic District, we liked the Logan Philadelphia, one of Hilton’s Curio hotels. Our room was a decent size with a nice view of enormous Logan Square.
It had a nice pool and a locavore restaurant with a popular brunch. It has outdoor terrace facing a garden that’s ideal with relaxing with morning coffee or afternoon drinks.
Unless you want to try to figure out the city’s Byzantine parking rules, take advantage of the valet parking.
The Academy of Natural Sciences, the Franklin Institute and the Sister Cities Park—three very kid-friendly attractions— are also on the square. There are restaurants nearby and it’s a short walk down 18th Street to Rittenhouse Square, which is the best neighborhood for good, casual restaurants.
3. Most families want to stay in the Historic District on a first visit. In this area, I really liked the Renaissance Philadelphia Downtown for its great location. It has an elegant classical facade but inside the rooms are modern, sleek and welcoming.
The pool is small but nice (not too cold) and the first-floor lounge has an inviting fireplace. When we stayed, the hotel had a helpful staff and a friendly, relaxed attitude towards kids that you might not expect at first glance.
4. We’ve also stayed at the Marriott Old City, which is steps away from several great Philadelphia restaurants and a few blocks from the historical attractions. Marriott has given the hotel a total makeover with smart rooms, a bright welcoming lounge and a smart restaurant.
It also converted the pool into a large fitness center, an indication it might not be as family-friendly as it was when we stayed. But you can’t beat the location, and we managed to find both street parking and an inexpensive lot nearby. So if you don’t have smaller kids and a pool isn’t important, it’s worth considering.
Read More:
• Favorite Philadelphia Foods You Have to Try With Kids
• A Cool Couple’s Weekend Getaway in New Hope, PA
• The Best Things To Do on a Cape May Beach Weekend With Kids
14 Great Activities For A Philadelphia Weekend With Teens
1. Rediscover American History
Exploring the Historic District: Federal Hall & the Visitors Center
American History is the prime reason to visit Philadelphia. Several of the historic buildings and sites have been gathered under a National Historic Park umbrella. You can hit all the high points in a day or two, though a deeper dive will take longer.
• Start at the Independence Visitors Center across from the Liberty Bell. We picked up free, scheduled tickets to tour Independence Hall. And they usually have other stuff happening there as well.
They show three free movies that are each about 25 minutes long. The one we saw focused on the lives of real young people on both sides of the revolution.
We also watched a guy give a hammered dulcimer demonstratio. He asked for requests, so I jokingly asked if he knew “Hotel California.” He did! And he played it. There are usually also National Park Rangers on hand to answer questions.
• Depending on the time on your tickets, you’ll most likely head over Independence Hall, a National Historic Site and the main attraction.
I have to say I find it thrilling and humbling to stand in the room that yielded both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The National Park rangers who give the tours are fantastic. As always, they’re knowledgeable and good storytellers. Our guide expertly captured the drama that took place here. My teen is a history fan. If they aren’t, they might find this a bit dull, but everyone should visit.
While waiting for our tour, we ventured into a small side exhibit that explored the interest and influence the Founding Fathers had on science and nature, especially Franklin and Jefferson. I like the idea of STEM and history intersecting. It should appeal to a cross-section of tweens and teens.
• The Liberty Bell is nearby, inside a glass house. There is always a line and they don’t let you get all that close to it. I think you can see it just as well from the outside without waiting.
Meet The Real Ben Franklin
• On our latest visit, we stopped in to the relatively new Ben Franklin Museum, tucked away in a courtyard off of Market Street where his house once stood.
This is a great museum and would be manageable with kids in a wide age range. It focuses on Franklin the man, with Colonial history in the background as context for his remarkable life.
He was primarily famous for being Ben Franklin and was really our young nation’s first celebrity. The museum delves into all the ways in which he was creative, quirky and engaging.
There are interactive screens and videos, some of them quite amusing. For example, one screen portrays the alternate personas Franklin would take on to get a point across.
We also played a few tunes on a mock glass harmonica. And we learned that Franklin was fond of squirrels, and even sent a few as gifts to his friends in England (imagine opening that box!).
The only quibble I have is that it almost entirely glosses over Franklin’s many infidelities and any other details that might reflect poorly on him. But I think kids are very much the target audience and the museum is otherwise very well done. So I was willing to overlook that.
You can spend 45 minutes or two hours here, depending on your family’s interest and how thoroughly you want to explore it. Teen Traveler likes looking at things in detail and we were there for a good 90 minutes.
Tip: Kids too young for other parts of the exhibit can hunt for a well-dressed squirrel named Suggs throughout the museum.
Tip: When you’re done, head a few blocks toward the river to Shane Candy Company, where you can buy barley sugar squirrels as a souvenir (along with all kinds of handmade chocolate and seasonal treats).
If your family likes larger, cluttered used-book shops, cross Market Street and find the Book Trader on 7th Street. It’s the kind of bookshop where you stumble across any number of great finds, often in more than one language.
Check Out A Revolutionary Museum
The Museum of the American Revolution opened in a Federal-style building a few blocks from Independence Hall in 2017. It has some really cool and unique objects. But the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown, VA finished a major upgrade around the same time. It has a lot of high-tech interactive elements for all ages and is far more immersive and fun.
I admit I was a little disappointed here. The coolest thing this museum has is a collection of photos of people who were alive during the revolution and lived long enough for cameras to come along and take pictures of them. The diversity of the photos is stunning: former slaves, soldiers, loyalists, women who supported the army and more. It’s remarkable that photography has carried these faces down to us.
The second-coolest thing here is George Washington’s tent, which he slept in throughout the war. They show a movie that talks about Washington as a leader and what made him so popular with his contemporaries (sleeping in a tent like the rank and file helped).
After the movie, the screen lifts, showing the tent behind a glass wall. It’s quite dramatic, but they don’t give you any time to walk up to the glass for a closer look, which I would have liked.
Younger kids have the Revolution Place rooms where they can don costumes, crawl into a typical soldier’s tent or spend time in a period church, tavern or parlor. Touch screens here help kids learn about regular people from the time.
For Tweens and Teens there might be too much looking and not enough interactivity.
Look for Colonial Ghosts
Our teen has enjoyed ghost tours in other cities we’ve visited, so we decided to try one here. I chose the Spirits of ’76 Ghost Tour because they limit the group to 12 people and make more stops than other tours.
We saw a few groups of 20 to 30 people on our rounds, and it confirmed we chose well. We could always easier always hear the guide and ask questions. And a small group gets from one place to the next more efficiently, so we got to see and hear more.
There are a good number of houses, churches, cemeteries and other buildings in the Old City that aren’t museums but have long histories.
The ghost tours are a good way to learn about them. We heard about 18th century city leaders, doctors and society women. And plenty of ghost tales. Some of the stories were a little too farfetched for even my suspension of disbelief. But It was still fun for all of us.
I recommend this tour. The same group does a daytime Constitutional Walking Tour. Our guide on the nighttime tour was so good we will probably do this one the next time around.
Discover A Magic Garden
On one of our visits, the folks at VisitPhilly steered us to the Magic Garden on South Street as an activity that would please both parents and kids, and they were so right! Parents, teens, tweens and children can all appreciate it on different levels. But everyone will get something out of it.
An artist took a retail space and backyard and spent about a decade covering every available surface with mosaics of tiles and mirrors, ziggurats of glass bottles, Peruvian statues, bicycle wheels and any other odd bits that struck his fancy.
It’s part genius and part crazy and makes you say, wow!
Tip: Kids can ask for a scavenger hunt that sends them searching high and low for animals, birds and mermaids. On the way out, they can exchange their pencil for a temporary tattoo designed by the artist.
• South Street is a famous Philly strip, but I’m always underwhelmed by it. It used to be seedy in a colorful way with book, magic and vintage stores. These have all closed and while there is a bit of gentrification happening, a stretch of the street is still seedy without being colorful.
Spen An Afternoon At A Gaming Café
Our ghost tour guide recommended Queen & Rook Game Café on Second Street, just off of the end of South Street. The following afternoon turned cold and drizzly so we went there and spent a great couple of hours playing games and snacking.
The wide drinks menu includes coffees, soft drinks and microbrews. It also has themed cocktails and mocktails like the Queen’s Gambit and the Phoenix Feather. I had a Dragon’s Eye, a spicy-sweet mix of hot peppers, dragon fruit and gin.
Teen Traveler had a warm butterbeer, which tasted like apple cider with a hint of butterscotch. It was less cloying than other iterations we’ve had. Adults can add a shot of something to it. On a winter’s day, warm butterbeer with a shot of bourbon or apple whiskey would make a fine hot toddy.
We also snacked on Korean-style fried cauliflower and crispy Brussels sprouts, which were both great, and soft pretzel nuggets, which are less interesting but always a safe bet.
They have some 1,200 games to choose from, and a game concierge will find something new for you based on the games you like. We found a few we’d never played before, including one where players come up with the best captions for New Yorker cartoons.
Between the per-person fee and the snacks, we paid roughly as much as we would for a day at the movies. And it was more social and fun.
Browse the U. Penn Bookstore
We took an unofficial look at the University of Pennsylvania on one visit. The campus is lovely and lively on the weekend and strolling through it was enjoyable.
There is good dining and shopping off-campus on Walnut & Sansom streets. The Penn Bookstore is absolutely worth a visit.
It spans three floors with a café and a vast array of university apparel and other items. Book-wise, it has a great selection of cooking, math and science books, and a huge fiction department. It was hard to get my family to leave.
If you can swing it, spend some time in the impressive Penn Museum. Its archeology and anthropology exhibits include the oldest known recipe for making beer in the Sumerian room.
Have A South Philly Food Adventure
We never visit the city without stopping to shop and eat in the Italian and Mexican markets in South Philadelphia. Share a roast pork sandwich from George’s, sample tacos from any of several purveyors, and leave room for cannoli, filled to order, of course.
We always smell the amazing cheese shop before we see it. Its well-curated selection included rich Italian styles you don’t see everywhere.
On one visit, we discovered a butcher that specializes in game and bought boar to make Ragù with. His house-made sausages looked good, too.
Afterward, we visited a pasta shop where we watched them crank out fresh fettuccine for us. We bought a huge bag of very good tomatoes for $2 from one of the curbside produce stalls. Boom, we had everything we needed for a delicious Sunday dinner.
Our last stop is always Isgro’s Bakery, where we buy cannoli and mascarpone-filled éclairs for the car ride home.
• Tip: South Philly is a popular neighborhood for food-centered walking tours.
Read More: Foods You Have to Eat in Philly With Kids.
Appreciate Art After Dark
If you need something to do at night with teens, head to the Philadelphia Art Museum on Friday, when it stays open until 8:30. The Friday Night Lounge events include live music, light food and drinks, and the opportunity to explore the galleries without a crowd.
Admission and parking are both discounted, too.
The night we went, there was a great jazz band and plenty of families were hanging out in the Great Stair Hall, where the music and food is.
The fellow who sold us our tickets recommended the Impressionist collection, the Brancusi statues and the Asian galleries to us. We actually spent time talking about light in the impressionist paintings. And we had space to move closer and further back to see how they changed (like in Ferris Bueller).
There’s so much to do in Philadelphia on a weekend visit that we honestly would not have made it to this stellar museum without these evening hours. I’d do it again because there is always a new temporary exhibit to see.
Get Outside in Fairmont Park
If you have good weather, head to gigantic Fairmount Park.
Built to protect the city’s water supply, Fairmont Park sprawls for miles on either side of the Schuylkill River. You’ll find trails, meadows, colonial houses, a Japanese garden, colorful boat houses, picturesque industrial ruins and so much more tucked among its hills and bluffs.
We tried one afternoon to drive into the park to randomly explore it a bit. It didn’t work very well. It’s so big, you really need a plan.
If you have kids up to age 12 or so, head to the large Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse. It’s a busy playground with lots of cool climbing things. But the best part is a long wood slide inside what looks like a barn. You ride down on burlap sacks and it’s fun, even when you’re technically too old for it.
With older kids, you park by any of several hiking trails. Next time, I would try to park in the lot off of Jelly Drive near the rock garden (under the Girard Bridge). Then you can walk or ride bikes along the river, past the lighthouse and the colorful boathouses, all the way to the Water Works. These were built back in the day, when public works were designed on a grand scale. In other words, they’re pretty.
Things To Do With Tots and Kids
Limit Your Time in the Historic District
I tried the Historic District when Tiny Traveler was in preschool and again when she was in third grade. Based on our experience, I would say the historical stuff is probably best for kids in fourth grade and up, the age they start learning colonial history in school.
• Preschool-age Tiny Traveler liked Betsy Ross’s house, pretty much the only historical thing we visited. The house is so small it almost feels like a life-size dollhouse, which I think was part of the appeal for her.
High points for her included the chamber pots and a clever cat fountain in the yard. The house can be thoroughly explored in under half an hour and admission is pretty cheap, making it ideal to do with little ones.
• Nearby Franklin Square offers a small carousel, mini-golf and a giant fountain that takes center stage in a music-and-lights show in the warm months.
• Her favorite activity in that part of town was the 45 minutes she spent running around Independence Mall. On a warm winter afternoon she had plenty of company. I sprawled on the grass and researched places to eat while she played.
Take Young Kids To The Please Touch Museum…
The Please Touch Museum, which recently had a well-deserved cameo in Abbott Elementary, is an amazing children’s museum; the kind you don’t mind visiting as an adult. It’s so big you won’t do everything in one visit because one part or another will draw your child in for ages.
It enthralled and exhausted Tiny Traveler when she was 4.
The World of Alice in Wonderland was her favorite area and the one where we spent the most time. It’s ideal for any kid who has an active imagination. You can play the queen’s croquet, try different sized houses, have tea with the the Mad Hatter and more.
Next to Wonderland is a small play area themed with easily recognizable nursery rhymes and she liked that quite a bit, too.
She loved the large indoor carousel and the craft room, which always has a few things going on for kids of different ages. She also had fun maneuvering a bulldozer to lift plastic balls from a pit.
The building, water and science areas are similar to what you’ll see in other children’s museums, but kids always like them.
We revisited Please Touch when she was 7. We spent about two hours, but it didn’t engage her the way it had previously. It’s definitely geared more toward preschoolers and kindergartners.
Read More:
• The 11 Best Kids’ Museums in the U.S.
• How to Take Kids To An Art Museum
…And School-Age Kids To The Franklin Institute
As she reluctantly outgrew Please Touch, Tiny Traveler enthusiastically grew into the Franklin Institute, easily the best science museum we’ve been to (tied with Chicago’s Museum of Science & Industry).
She liked the KidScience room, which explores air, water, wind and light and is just for 6-to 8-year-olds.
She had a great time pretending she was on a Magic School Bus trip as she climbed inside a human heart and crawled all over brain neurons.
We made a human circuit in the Electricity room and she recorded her own weather forecast as we passed through the Changing Earth.
Keep your eye out for live demonstrations under Ben’s statue. They happen throughout the day and we all enjoyed them.
The Amazing Machine looks a little dull at first, but she could have spent hours here transforming gears into machines and making devices move in different ways.
Even with the museum staying open late for spring break, there was a fair amount we didn’t get to. Ages 7 to 12 are the prime audience here.
Tip: Our AAA membership got us a discount on admission to the Franklin.
So, What About The Philadelphia Flower Show?
Philadelphia’s famous springtime flower show is the oldest in the U.S. and attracts big crowds. We got tickets for the first time at the tail-end of Covid-19, when the organizers moved it outside to FDR Park on the edge of the city.
In 2025, they moved back indoors to the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Center City. It’s probably a slightly smaller show, but the outdoor show was hot and parking was crazy. Walking to the convention center from a city hotel and being in a climate-controlled space would definitely make it more enjoyable.
The show wasn’t quite what I expected. I thought we would see a series of large and colorful flower displays, and there was a little of that, but I could have used more.
There was large-scale floral art, some funny and imaginative creatures made from flowers and leaves and models of small patios and gardens for city spaces.
There were a lot of vendors selling gardening-related wares, from hats and gloves to flowery jewelry. Sometimes it felt like I had to find the flowers among the vendors, but the gardening enthusiasts enjoy talking to these folks.
There were a variety of pop-up food vendors and the food looked good, but it took us much longer than we expected to park, and we had to head home before we could try them.
What Age? I think babies in carriers, toddlers and preschoolers might enjoy this quite a bit because there is so much to look at and explore. School-age kids will be bored quickly, as will teens, unless they are gardeners or aspiring botanists.
Give yourself a minimum of two hours to see everything leisurely; more if you are a gardener or you want to stay for lunch.
Pin it for later!
All photos by Eileen Gunn© except the Art Museum (PMA), South Philly (Philadelphia Italian Market) and Logan Curio Hotel (Hilton).