Hellobee

This post was originally titled “last minute vacation in New Orleans,” but after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and looked to be headed toward New Orleans just before Labor Day (clearly, I’ve been quite delayed in writing this post), we cancelled our tickets and decided to drive to Philadelphia, instead. Philadelphia is only 2.5 hours from where we live, so we knew it was a good, short distance for the kids. It turned out to be a great trip, easy to plan out at the last minute, and fun for the kids. On the way back we actually decided to stay in Wilmington overnight and do some things there the next day to break up the drive a bit.

Philadelphia was great for our purposes because Mr. Dolphin had never been, the city was very walkable (once we parked at our hotel, we didn’t go to the car at all until we left for Wilmington) and pretty stroller friendly, things were free or relatively inexpensive and there were parks everywhere for the kids to run around in. Here are some fun things to do in Philadelphia with kids over a weekend.

Independence Hall and Liberty Bell

For Mr. Dolphin and me, these were must-dos on our list. You can’t go to Philadelphia and not appreciate the history of the city. Honestly, the kids were less impressed as we did our guided tours throughout, but they managed. We hit it up first thing in the morning, which was good for our kids because they’re usually happiest and most cooperative soon after breakfast.

Elfreth’s Alley

Elfreth’s alley is apparently the oldest residential street in the United States. I know it sounds a little weird to say this, but it was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It is a very quaint street and we went early enough in the morning that we had the street to ourselves. It was also a surprisingly big hit for the kids, particularly Panda who may or may not have tried to climb onto a couple of cellar doors.

Fireman’s Hall Museum

If you make it up to Elfreth’s Alley, you should definitely hit up Fireman’s Hall Museum. We weren’t that smart and visited Fireman’s Hall on one day, then went all the way back to Elfreth’s Alley the next; they are just about a block away from each other. I think that this museum may have been the highlight of Philadelphia for Lion who is firefighter obsessed. Both kids loved looking at all the antique firefighting vehicles and equipment on the first floor before going upstairs to try on firefighting gear and see more exhibits.  The museum is free, but they do take donations.

Trying to walk around in boots that are about as heavy as they are.

It was tough dragging the kids away from the museum and I’m pretty sure had we gone back the next day, they wouldn’t have complained. Mr. Dolphin and I enjoyed the museum, as well, though there’s no doubt that we wouldn’t have gone if we didn’t have the kids with us.

Pretending to put out fires using a water cannon.

Reading Terminal Market

Oh my gosh, the selection and quality of food at the Reading Terminal Market was fantastic. We had some really good Chinese food (and I am picky about Chinese food), breakfast sandwiches from an Amish farm’s stall, crepes and smoothies. Everything was fantastic and the kids really liked walking through the market. Because there are so many different stands, everyone can get the food they want. Also, there is ample seating space and it has a bit of a food court atmosphere, so I don’t worry about the kids disturbing people the same way as I do when we’re in a sit-down restaurant. Toward the back of the market, the kids were highly entertained with a metal pig sitting on top of a glass box where you “feed” the pig coins or dollar bills. When we were there, all the money collected was being directed to  Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.

Franklin Square Park

If Fireman’s Hall was the highlight of the trip for the kids, Franklin Square Park was probably a close second. There is a beautiful carousel with some really unique animals on it, a miniature golf course and a playground. While we skipped the golf course, we rode on the carousel twice and spent quite a bit of time at the park.

Panda was terrified, but Lion kept telling him to be brave.

Walking Around the City

The weather was decent while we were there and we really enjoyed just walking around.  It’s a very walkable city and it was amazing how many historical things we just stumbled across. The buildings are gorgeous and there are numerous historical landmarks scattered. There are also quite a few fountains, memorials/statues and, in the historic district, we saw several horse-drawn carriages that Lion and Panda liked to point to. We also let the kids run around in just about every park we encountered, easily approaching a dozen.

Wilmington, DE

Lion working hard at the building zone at the Delaware Children’s Museum.

Although I don’t know that I’d go out of our way to make a trip to Wilmington, it was on the way back so we stopped off to extend our trip a day. We visited the Delaware Children’s Museum, which was seriously amazing. There was an area where they could put boats in water, a mechanic’s center, a huge building zone, ride-on vehicles, basketball hoops and a pitching zone, an art studio and so much more. We spent about two hours there, but easily could have been there all day.

Panda LOVES all things art and was thrilled to have an easel to do his work.

The only reason we left was to catch a train ride on the Wilmington & Western Railroad, a ride that generally travels up for a 30-minute ride to a picnic grove, allows passengers to get out for 30-minutes, then returns back to the station in Wilmington. It was raining and a bit muddy when we were there, so the train didn’t stop at the picnic grove, but instead continued up for a longer ride. The trip is narrated and while the kids enjoyed it, I think the nearly 1.5 hours on the train non-stop was a bit much.

Lion enjoyed exploring the train after the ride was over.

By the way, we were lucky that we had booked our outbound flight on Southwest, which fully refunded our tickets. We booked our hotel using Chase Ultimate Rewards points and the hotel fully refunded due to the inclement weather. American Airlines refused to refund us our tickets, but we are currently trying to get coverage for those tickets through the travel insurance on our credit card which covers trip cancellations due to weather. You can read more about travel hacking here, here, here and here, which helped in the original booking of the New Orleans trip, the cancellation and the last minute trip to Philadelphia and Wilmington.

Enjoying the change of scenery, even when we were in the hotel.