We spent a day looking at Philadelphia’s historical sites.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Occasionally I do find myself on some side quests, so the travel section of my blog documents all of these weird and wacky journeys that I keep randomly happen to be going on. A lot of the time a handful of my travel decisions are just things that happen spontaneously and out of the blue, as I agree to something here or there and find myself heading to the other side of the country.

Lately I’ve been writing about my road trip throughout the Alps in Europe, which is one of the few planned travel events I’ve had in the past year or so. I ended up booking that trip after a year in India, which I was told was going to happen, fell apart, and then I booked a trip to Europe to make myself feel better about that happening.

Little did I know that right before I left for Europe, my father’s cousin’s husband called me from Philadelphia inviting me to come over. He wanted me to come before

And because they are a bit older (he is in his eighties), I knew I might not get the chance to do this again. 2024 to early 2025 was my funemployed period, where I focused on being self employed and on this blog, so I had the finances to go and work from wherever I wanted.

I am incredibly privileged and grateful that as soon as I came back from Europe, I was able to depart for this trip as well. My blog readers are a big part as to why I can do what I do, and I am forever grateful for everyone who stumbles across my work and reads what I write. It’s something I truly do not take for granted.

I booked an Amtrak for $35 from Baltimore to Philadelphia then to spend four days with them. We honestly only did actual tourist-y things though for one day, hence why this blog post only covering a single day. I was hanging out with my relatives the rest of the time, and we really didn’t do anything of note besides playing cards, cooking, eating, and chatting with each other.

Let’s get into what we did during this one day though! We did a lot.

Philadelphia is packed with American historical sites, and a lot of them are free.

We were truly going off of vibes this trip, so we didn’t think to book a ticket for the Independence Hall for the two of us. You can tour the premises for free, but you have to book a ticket on the site before you go the location. When we went there and asked an employee, they explained to us that that the tickets usually go before 11 AM the day of. So book in advance if this is something you really want to do!

While we were not able to go into the hall where history was made, there were plenty of other buildings to go in and out of. After we parked nearby, we first went through the section that explains Independence Square and the history that was made there. I was with my elderly relative who could not really read English, and I knew the history already, so we just walked through and I explained it to him.

The Liberty Bell is one of the main highlights of historical artifacts in the immediate area, and there’s usually a line to get into the building. There’s also a small security set up where they screen bags and make you go through a metal detector, which is why there was such a hold up.

Before you get to the bell you can read about the notion of liberty in the United States, as well as how the bell represents freedom from beyond the national established borders of the USA. I liked how they brought in the Civil Rights Movement as a discussion of what racial equity and liberty was about, then you can see the bell right after that.

It’s a lot smaller than I expected in person. We took some photos there and enjoyed looking at it for a few minutes, then headed out. After the Liberty Bell, we just kind of walked around and enjoyed the sights. There are some small museums you can enter here and there, but because I was with someone who could not walk or read the exhibits, we skipped those.

In the future, though, I would like to go back and see the African American history museum and the Constitution Center. I want to go back to Philadelphia just to see the sights more in-depth in the city, as my relatives live in the suburbs and are older (so they don’t and aren’t capable of going out), and I want to experience the city more.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a solid collection of contemporary and historical art.

After we finished up in Independence Square and got our fill of walking around, we went back to the car and decided to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My relative wanted to go as he had not been in over thirty years, and I like art museums so I kind of just shrugged and said why not.

So he drove there, and we parked in the garage. He and his wife are considered handicapped, so we needed the garage access (there was an elevator, then you walk across the road and the museum is right there). There are other free spots in the distance, but he could not walk that far for sure.

The museum is a bit expensive to go to on your own; we paid $28 for his senior ticket and $15 for my student ticket. I would imagine the free days are more ideal to go, but when we went on a weekday, the place was pretty empty. It was nice to see the artwork without having to elbow people.

I think the highlights of this museum for me were the collections of European art, especially from the medieval period, as well as the contemporary European art. They had a lot of Monet, Matisse, and Degas paintings, as well as a handful of Renoir’s work. On the third floor they had a small Asian wing, which featured an entire South Asian temple (I did side eye why this was here), and some work mainly from the Himalayas, the Indian subcontinent, China, and Iran.

My relative really liked the Iran room (we are Iranian) and we spent forty minutes in there alone. All in all, we spent about three hours in the museum anyways before getting hungry and deciding to head out back to their home. His wife was also calling to ask where exactly we had gone, so we ventured through the complex walls to find our way back out.

And that was our day out in the town! We did end up walking around the King of Prussia Mall, which is one of the largest malls in the country. I’m not into shopping though, but it is a nice place to just stroll around.

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