The best way to do a walking tour of Philadelphia

In the past couple weeks, I’ve shown you how to use machine learning to improve the efficiency of road trips all over the world, including the U.S., Europe, and South America. In this post, I’d like to show you how we can use the exact same algorithm to optimize walking tours in large cities.

If you’re anything like me whenever you stop in a big city, you have a few main attractions that you’d like to visit and end up haphazardly spending half your day staring at maps and trying to figure out the public transit system.

However, by focusing on a limited few attractions, we’re missing out on dozens of interesting places that we could’ve visited along the way. This is where the route optimization algorithm can come into play again: If we hand the algorithm the list of popular attractions in a city, it can provide us an efficient walking tour around the city that hits all of those attractions.

Below, I’ve mapped out an optimized walking tour for Philadelphia that hits the most popular attractions in the city according to TripAdvisor. This walking tour by no means represents the “definitive” walking tour for the city, but it's guaranteed to give you a great taste of the city while you’re there.

Optimized walking tour of Philadelphia

The Liberty Bell, cheese steaks, and obnoxious sports fans: These are some of the things that Philadelphia is widely known for. But did you know that Philadelphia is home to one of the largest urban park systems in the U.S.? Or that it’s home to America’s first zoo?

This 12-mile, 4-hour walking tour will take you through some of the best that Philadelphia has to offer, from beautiful parks to historic landmarks to breathtaking outdoor art collections. Again, don’t take this tour lightly, and plan to spend at least a few days in total enjoying the sights.

The same disclaimers from the NYC walking tour apply here: If 12 miles of walking sounds like too much, you can easily cut down on walking by taking public transit for some of the longer legs of the trek. Or better yet, the same tour can be followed on a bike instead.

Here’s the Google Maps walking directions: [1] [2] [3]

Here’s the full list of attractions in order:

1. Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, PA
2. Please Touch Museum, 4231 Avenue of the Republic, Philadelphia, PA
3. Philadelphia Zoo, West Girard Avenue, Philadelphia, PA
4. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA
5. Rocky Steps, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA
6. Eastern State Penitentiary, Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia, PA
7. Rodin Museum, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA
8. Barnes Foundation, 2025 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19130
9. The Franklin Institute, North 20th Street, Philadelphia, PA
10. Mutter Museum, South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
11. Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA
12. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
13. Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA
14. Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul, Race Street, Philadelphia, PA
15. Pennsylvania Academy Of The Fine Arts, North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA
16. Masonic Temple, North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA
17. Philadelphia City Hall, John F Kennedy Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA
18. Reading Terminal Market, 51 N 12th St, Philadelphia, PA
19. National Constitution Center, 525 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
20. Fireman’s Hall Museum, North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
21. Elfreth’s Alley, Philadelphia, PA
22. Christ Church, 20 North American Street, Philadelphia, PA
23. National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, PA
24. Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, PA
25. Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, South Street, Philadelphia, PA

Optimize your own walking tour

Undoubtedly, you’d like to pick your own stops in your own cities and optimize a walking tour around that. Well, you’re in luck!

If you’d like to customize your own walking tour, I’ve released the Python code I used in this project with an open source license and instructions for how to optimize your custom walking tour. If Google Maps can route in the city you want to take walking tour in, then this code will work for you.

SEE ALSO: The best way to do a walking tour of New York City

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