Free route
North Star Tour
Trace the Underground Railroad from Fort Mose to Canada with free stop audio and a completion challenge.
Open North StarPhiladelphia walking tours
America 250 starts on Philly streets.
Self-guided routes through Black history, Quaker heritage, civic memory, public art, campuses, neighborhoods, and the blocks where national stories become walkable.
18Routes
GoogleMaps
AudioStops
StoreGifts
America 250 collection
Freedom's Atlantic
Follow the founding story beyond Philadelphia into Black Patriots, Native sovereignty, the Caribbean, Gulf campaigns, Europe, and the wider Atlantic world.
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Philly Tours Store
Shop Philly Tours merch, America 250 pieces, route-inspired gifts, and Philadelphia history designs.
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Philadelphia walking tours
A deeper way to walk the city.
Self-guided Philadelphia routes for visitors, families, residents, students, educators, and culture lovers.
Philly Tours is built for visitors, families, students, residents, educators, and culture lovers who want a self-guided Philadelphia walking tour with more context than a quick sightseeing loop. The routes connect Independence Hall, Old City, Society Hill, University City, Germantown, Fairmount Park, South Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, libraries, churches, museums, transit corridors, public art, sports landmarks, neighborhood corridors, and historic streets into walkable stories. Each tour is designed to help you move at your own pace while still understanding why a block matters, how a place changed, and what Philadelphia reveals when you slow down.
Audio and context
Stories for the block you are standing on.
Audio narration and stop notes connect each route to Black history, civic memory, hidden corridors,
and neighborhood stories.
The tour catalog focuses on Black history, Quaker heritage, Revolutionary Philadelphia, America 250, architecture, libraries, invention, sports culture, campus life, civic memory, and hidden neighborhood routes. Audio narration and written stop notes are shaped for real walkers: short enough to use outside, specific enough to teach something, and grounded enough to connect a present-day corner to the people, institutions, conflicts, and ideas that made it important. You can use Philly Tours before a trip to plan a route, during a walk as a guide, or after a visit to revisit the story in order.
Maps and compass
Route guidance without a rushed schedule.
Browse Google-powered route previews, mapped stops, and direction links before choosing where to
begin.
The web experience gives each route a mapped stop sequence, a compass-style walking flow, Google-powered route previews, and links that open directions when you want turn-by-turn help. That means you can browse the catalog from a hotel room, choose a route from your phone, start near the stop that fits your day, and keep moving without joining a timed group. The map experience is especially useful for visitors who want to combine Independence Mall with food, museums, shopping, events, transit, or a longer neighborhood itinerary.
America 250
Founding history with a wider lens.
Follow semiquincentennial routes that connect famous landmarks with Black Patriots, abolition, and
public memory.
Philadelphia will be one of the most watched cities during America 250, but the founding story is bigger than one square mile and one familiar set of names. Philly Tours treats the semiquincentennial as a chance to walk through contradiction, courage, public memory, Black Patriots, abolition, Native sovereignty, Atlantic routes, religious liberty, civic improvement, protest, migration, and the everyday work of building a republic. Freedom's Atlantic and the North Star Tour extend that view beyond the usual landmarks while still keeping Philadelphia as the starting point.
For locals and visitors
Useful whether this is your first visit or your fiftieth walk.
Plan a first Philadelphia route, revisit familiar blocks, or pair a walk with gifts from the store.
First-time visitors can use Philly Tours to understand where to begin, what is nearby, and how different parts of the city connect. Local walkers can use it to revisit familiar places with new questions, plan a weekend route, host friends, teach a class, or build a themed day around Black history, public art, architecture, transit, libraries, or neighborhood memory. The store adds route-inspired gifts and Philadelphia history merchandise for people who want to carry the trip home or support the project after a walk.
How to use Philly Tours
Pick a theme, follow the stops, keep the city in view.
Choose a route by time, neighborhood, or curiosity, then use maps, stop lists, and story context.
Start with a route that matches your time and curiosity. A short visit might focus on Old City, Mother Bethel, the President's House, the Liberty Bell area, or a compact center-city loop. A longer day can reach Germantown, University City, Fairmount Park, museum corridors, or the waterfront. Each route page gives you a summary, stop list, map preview, walking direction link, and related story context. You do not need to download a separate guidebook or wait for a scheduled departure; the site is designed to make Philadelphia history usable from the sidewalk. It also gives searchers a clear way to compare routes before choosing the walk that fits their neighborhood, schedule, and interests.