Things to do in Philadelphia

Philadelphia is the closest of New York's further-afield day trips, about 150 kilometres away: roughly 1h30 by Amtrak or NJ Transit-connected trains from Penn Station, or around 2 hours by car. That short trip is what makes a same-day round trip realistic, but the city itself does not fit into one visit.

Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell sit in the historic core, both free, though Independence Hall requires a timed ticket collected at the visitor centre; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with its 72 steps made famous by Rocky, is in a separate district reached by transit or a long walk. A single day usually covers one area in depth, not both.

Locals argue over the city's cheesesteak, split between Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's Steaks, which face each other across the same intersection.