It’s not just steel that steals the show in Pitts­burgh. Large sand­wich­es, roller coast­ers, river­boats, and muse­ums share the spot­light in the city that built Amer­i­ca! Pitts­burgh is full of fun activ­i­ties for kids and teens, even those that are only kids at heart. Some vis­i­tors go to vis­it the famous Falling Water house or head there for bud­get friend­ly shows, opera, and sports tick­ets. Pitts­burgh and my home­town Cleve­land are friend­ly rivals, so it pains me just a lit­tle bit to say this, but Pitts­burgh is a real­ly great city for fam­i­lies and you should absolute­ly pay it a visit! 

Visit Station Square

One of my favorite places to vis­it as a kid was the Sta­tion Square area of Pitts­burgh. Sta­tion Square is not only home to lots of places to shop and dine, its also the site to two of my favorite attrac­tions: The Gate­way Clip­per and the Duquesne Incline! 

Ride the Gateway Clipper

The Gate­way Clip­per has a fleet of river­boats that sail through the city. They offer sight­see­ing or din­ner cruis­es, as well as sea­son­al cruis­es. I’ve nev­er had a bad expe­ri­ence on the Clip­per. It’s a real­ly fun way to see Pitts­burgh! And your kids will love see­ing the city from a river.

Feel­ing Nau­ti? The Gate­way Clip­per also hosts adult only wine cruis­es.  Pho­to Cour­tesy of The Gate­way Clipper

Ride the Duquesne Incline

The Duquesne Incline is a cable car that is used to car­ry car­go and pas­sen­gers up Mount Wash­ing­ton. It was built in 1877 and has been in oper­a­tion ever since. I was real­ly impressed with it as a kid, and to be hon­est I’m still pret­ty impressed with the incline as an adult. The neigh­bor­hood at the top of the incline is a great place to walk around. I’ve even seen a few pro­pos­als at the view­ing plat­form at the top. 

This view has inspired more than a few pro­pos­als over the years! Pho­to cour­tesy of Vidar Nordli-Mathisenn on Unsplash.

Play at Kennywood

Ken­ny­wood is an amuse­ment park out­side of Pitts­burgh. I con­sid­er myself a bit of an amuse­ment park guru, and I’ll admit that there is a nos­tal­gia fac­tor here, because I was prac­ti­cal­ly raised on pota­to patch fries, but Ken­ny­wood is one of my favorite amuse­ment parks in the world. It’s a great fam­i­ly park, they tru­ly has some­thing for every­one. Ken­ny­wood’s newest attrac­tion is 2019’s roller­coast­er of the year The Steel Cur­tain. The Steel Cur­tain inverts more times (9) than any roller­coast­er in North Amer­i­ca and is the tallest (197 feet high!) in the world! 

For the younger sect, they also have Thomas Town based on every­one’s favorite tank engine and lots of oth­er fam­i­ly-friend­ly kid’s rides and attrac­tions. I have many fond mem­o­ries of going to Ken­ny­wood with my cousins as a kid. Many of the attrac­tions at Ken­ny­wood are his­tor­i­cal land­marks. Be sure to look for the plac­ards not­ing the his­toric attractions! 

The Whip is a clas­sic Ken­ny­wood attrac­tion, it’s almost 100 years old! Pho­to cour­tesy of Breemik08 via Cre­ative Commons

Visit the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh

Did you know that Mr. Rogers was from Pitts­burgh? He filmed his show at WQED in Pitts­burgh for many years. So it’s no sur­prise that the Chil­dren’s Muse­um of Pitts­burgh has an exhib­it in his hon­or. Kids of all ages will enjoy the many exhibits there, includ­ing sci­ence and art based exhibits. If you have old­er kids, check out Muse­um­lab next door, which is geared towards the 10 and up crowd. 

See Art at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

The Carnegie Muse­ums of Pitts­burgh is a muse­um sys­tem that includes 4 muse­ums; art, nat­ur­al his­to­ry, the sci­ence cen­ter and the Andy Warhol muse­um. If you have a dinosaur lover in your fam­i­ly, you need to make a bee­line to the nat­ur­al his­to­ry muse­um. They have so many arti­facts relat­ed to dinosaurs, includ­ing a quar­ry where you can dig up a “fos­sil” and a ton of actu­al fossils! 

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Where to Eat

Primanti Brothers

They say when in Rome do as the Romans do, so when in Pitts­burgh eat at Pri­man­ti Broth­ers. Pri­man­ti Broth­ers is a sand­wich shop, with a unique twist. They put their fries and coleslaw right on the sand­wich! There are oth­er sand­wich shops around town that make sim­i­lar sand­wich­es, but trust me on this one, Pri­man­ti Broth­ers is where it’s at. Good luck eat­ing one though. The sheer size makes it chal­leng­ing. It’s worth it though, they are amazing!

S & D Polish Deli

Not a sand­wich fan? Then try some piero­gies! Piero­gies are a tra­di­tion­al pol­ish dish, basi­cal­ly, thin dough stuffed with pota­toes or cheese and occa­sion­al­ly sauer­kraut or meat. You can try piero­gies all over town, piero­gies are prac­ti­cal­ly Pitts­burgh’s mas­cot. There’s even a piero­gi race at Pitts­burgh Pirates games!  I like S&D Pol­ish Deli the best though. They are the clos­est to the kind of piero­gies my aunts make. You can tell if the piero­gies are hand made by look­ing at the edges. If the piero­gi edges are a lit­tle bumpy, then they are most like­ly hand made. The bumps are from the fin­gers press­ing them closed! 

The AA bat­tery is for ref­er­ence. May the Odds be Ever in your Favor. Pho­to Cour­tesy of Joe Siegler via Cre­ative Commons.

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Where to Stay

There is a love­ly Sher­a­ton at Sta­tion Square that would be a great place to stay if you want to be with­in walk­ing dis­tance of the Gate­way Clip­per and the Incline. If you want to stay on the oth­er side of town, clos­er to Ken­ny­wood, then the Hamp­ton Inn Water­front would be a great choice! Not only do they have a pool they have a beau­ti­ful view of the riv­er. The Fair­mount is arguably the nicest hotel in PItts­burgh, that’s actu­al­ly where celebri­ties usu­al­ly stay when they are in town film­ing movies! Tom Cruise even stayed there when he filmed Jack Reacher. 

You can check out reviews of thee and oth­er area hotels and get the best prices from Tri­pAd­vi­sor.

When you Go

If you’re com­ing to Pitts­burgh from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, the eas­i­est way to get here would be to fly into Pitts­burgh Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. There is a small net­work of pub­lic trans­porta­tion, but the eas­i­est way to get around the ‘burgh would be to rent a car or use Uber/Lyft. 

Pitts­burgh is known as the City of Bridges. Three rivers flow through Pitts­burgh: the Alleghe­ny, the Monon­ga­hela, and the Ohio Riv­er. Pitts­burgh has a whoop­ing 446 bridges! Because of the rivers and all those bridges, Pitts­burgh can be con­fus­ing to nav­i­gate. It’s not uncom­mon for high­ways in some parts of Pitts­burgh to be built so close togeth­er that my GPS gets as con­fused as I am. So, I high­ly sug­gest that you go a lit­tle old school and print some direc­tions out and put your best read­er in the pas­sen­ger seat if you decide to dri­ve while you’re in the ‘burgh. 

Pitts­burgh also has some great Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tours that can accli­mate you to the city quick­ly and get you to the areas you want to vis­it fast.

Also, Via­tor has tours and oth­er dis­count­ed activ­i­ties that can make your vis­it even better.

Which lane do you need? You’ve got like 300 feet, bet­ter fig­ure it out! Pho­to Cour­tesy of  Wikideas and AboutMyTrip.Com

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