Traveling to Pittsburgh - Suggestions?

[White Cat]

Thanks everyone! You have definitely given me things to study!

How about safety? Would you be comfortable in public areas in the evening?

Should be fine in the city.

 

[LoveSpringsteen]

We visited Pittsburgh about 5 years ago for a quick family trip. We really enjoyed The National Aviary which is near the Children's Museum. Our son was really into penguins that year, so the Aviary was a hit. We also did a behind the scenes tour of Heinz Stadium and we all enjoyed that. We visited the Carnegie Museum. My son and husband went to a Penguins game and my daughter and I visited the Andy Warhol museum (but I wouldn't recommend that for younger kids). We stayed at a Hampton Inn on Smallman St. Very nice hotel and we were able to walk and Uber/Lyft to restaurants. The Heinz History Museum is across the street from that Hampton but we didn't make it there during that trip.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

speaking as a local, the history center is boring. Inclines are great, there's an ice cream place at the top of Mt Washington that is good and within walking distance of the top of the incline and the view from the lookout at the top is beautiful on a clear night. Zoo and Aviary are great places to spend half a day if you like animals, weather is iffy for spring break though so you might want to opt for the Aviary instead. Phipps is great too and indoors, they have fun stuff for families as you walk through, sometimes you can sample some of the fruit that grows there or they will have displays at different times of the year. You could also check out the museum of art and natural history. Science center is also cool. you can get through any of those in half a day and spend the other half doing tourist-y stuff like the inclines, eating at Primantis, strip district, etc. if you decide to do the incline at Station Square there's enough stuff in that area for you to walk around and see to kill the afternoon/evening hours.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I was using GPS

there's a whole lot of "you can't get there from here" places, our roads are laid out with zero planning.

 

[mrodgers]

The Carnegie museums are good. The science center and the natural history are 2 good choices. My kids enjoy both. You can go to station square to get on the incline and there are some restaurants there that we have gone to. We've done the melting pot and the hard rock.

Outside of the city, near the airport is the Robinson Town area. They have a nice shopping area with lots of restaurants. We have stayed at the Drury near Robinson and it was nice.

If you've never been to Pittsburgh, the city can a bit of a challenge to drive around. It took me 3 tries one time to get headed the right way out of the city.

I worked at Heinz. Before starting I figured I'd better get down there and figure out how to get to it. I circled Heinz 7 times taking 7 different ramps and still couldn't get there.

After a week of driving down Rt. 28 from up north, I caught the sign for I279 and realized it was only 1 block away to get onto 279.

GPS is a must and always have a map from AAA.

I find the GPS quite difficult in Pittsburgh because you can sit in 3 lanes of traffic at a stoplight and be facing 5 different ramps ahead that you can go on. You get on a ramp and next thing your car marker on the GPS is heading to the left because it doesn't know which ramp you're actually on until you're out of that area and already past the next ramp you should be taking while the GPS still thinks you're heading off to the left.

 

[mrodgers]

Definitely ride one of the inclines! The museums are great, the zoo is really nice. The cathedral of learning and the nationality rooms are great, too! I haven’t been to the Phipps Conservatory for years but I know people who go all the time and they love it.

Pamela’s for breakfast, Primanti Bothers is a must. There are a lot of really good restaurants in Pgh so you definitely won’t go hungry.

Make sure it's the original in the Strip District. The rest of them are terrible. The original is fantastic.

Also walk around the Strip. It's great for food shopping. Lots of Italian shops.

 

[MamaMermaid]

Sarris Candy!! Close to the airport. Also, the Aviary is beautiful.

 

[GreatLakes]

Everything I was going to suggest has already been mentioned but as far as staying, I've stayed on both the north and south shore of the Allegheny River downtown and both were perfectly safe. We stay near either Point State Park or the baseball stadium.

As others have mentioned navigation is a little tricky even with GPS so I'd always know a few steps in advance where you need to be so you can follow the signs and be in the right lane. If you just rely on GPS you'll have a lot of very sudden lane changes.

 

[mumto3girls]

Sarris Candy!! Close to the airport. Also, the Aviary is beautiful.

Sarris Candy is IMO the best chocolate I’ve ever had. Their ice cream (sold at their retail store in Canonsburg, PA) is also fantastic especially if you add their milk or dark chocolate hardcap on top.

But, it’s really not that close to the airport. I work walking distance from Sarris and it’s about 25 miles to the airport. An easy drive—almost all highway—but about 30 minutes depending on traffic.

Many grocery/drug stores in the area sell Sarris candy though. Not the selection you would find in the retail store, but it’s definitely readily available even without driving to Canonsburg.

 

[mmbrad02]

Thank you all so much for your help! We returned today from our trip and we had a lovely time!

For those that mention navigation - that was no joke There were a couple of times we had to circle a block because the GPS was not staying right with us, but thankfully everything went fine. DH handled it like champ.

Friday we basically just arrived early evening from the Flight 93 Memorial. We did stop at the "Big Mac Museum" Mcondalds on the way for dessert.

On Saturday we ended up having Pamela's for breakfast (SOOO good), going to the Carnegie Science Center (DD11 Loved this, we were there a most of the morning and early afternoon), drove around Randyland (it was raining so we just circled the block a couple of times), Phipps Conservatory (beautiful), Duquesne Incline, walked to the Grandview overlook (okay so I'm not in tip top shape - my calves still hurt - haha), dinner at Primanti's (but not the original one). We did all of that with no real break other than the car rides in between, so we were completely exhausted by dinner. We just chilled in our hotel after.

Today we went to Einstein Brothers for breakfast. I know thats not really anyrhing special but we don't have them here and DD loves bagels - it was just okay to us. She was happy but she got a plain bagel with plain Smear so kinda hard to go wrong with that . Then we headed to Canonsburg to Sarris Candy. OH MY WORD. That place was heavenly. I probably shouldn't admit that we left with a $111 total in candy. But we did get Easter gifts for DD's teachers, some stuff for family, etc. However the ice cream was the winner here for us. Huge servings! I got vanilla with the hard milk chocolate topping - I wish I could have finished it but I got so full. After that I made a quick dash around some of the Tanger outlets, and we headed home via Wheeling/Columbus/etc.

 

[Skippyboo]

Glad you had a great time in the burgh. I grew up in Western PA about an hour south of downtown. Sarris has a peanut butter Easter egg that’s like the size of the a football cut in half. It’s like 4 inches of peanut butter with a small chocolate crust layer so good.

 

[mumto3girls]

Thank you all so much for your help! We returned today from our trip and we had a lovely time!

For those that mention navigation - that was no joke There were a couple of times we had to circle a block because the GPS was not staying right with us, but thankfully everything went fine. DH handled it like champ.

Friday we basically just arrived early evening from the Flight 93 Memorial. We did stop at the "Big Mac Museum" Mcondalds on the way for dessert.

On Saturday we ended up having Pamela's for breakfast (SOOO good), going to the Carnegie Science Center (DD11 Loved this, we were there a most of the morning and early afternoon), drove around Randyland (it was raining so we just circled the block a couple of times), Phipps Conservatory (beautiful), Duquesne Incline, walked to the Grandview overlook (okay so I'm not in tip top shape - my calves still hurt - haha), dinner at Primanti's (but not the original one). We did all of that with no real break other than the car rides in between, so we were completely exhausted by dinner. We just chilled in our hotel after.

Today we went to Einstein Brothers for breakfast. I know thats not really anyrhing special but we don't have them here and DD loves bagels - it was just okay to us. She was happy but she got a plain bagel with plain Smear so kinda hard to go wrong with that . Then we headed to Canonsburg to Sarris Candy. OH MY WORD. That place was heavenly. I probably shouldn't admit that we left with a $111 total in candy. But we did get Easter gifts for DD's teachers, some stuff for family, etc. However the ice cream was the winner here for us. Huge servings! I got vanilla with the hard milk chocolate topping - I wish I could have finished it but I got so full. After that I made a quick dash around some of the Tanger outlets, and we headed home via Wheeling/Columbus/etc.

So glad for your update. I wrote up thread that I work close to Sarris and I just bought our Easter candy there on Friday—it is not difficult to spend $111 at Sarris. Absolutely delicious, but definitely expensive. I usually get ice cream there once a year—the milk chocolate hard cap is so good—and I try to go hungry. So happy you enjoyed our cities—Pittsburgh and Canonsburg.

 

[mrodgers]

Glad you had a great time in the burgh. I grew up in Western PA about an hour south of downtown. Sarris has a peanut butter Easter egg that’s like the size of the a football cut in half. It’s like 4 inches of peanut butter with a small chocolate crust layer so good.

Yup, I need to pick 2 of them up here shortly, only have this week left.

I failed myself with the huge bag of Cadbury candy coated chocolate eggs at Sam's. I'm going to try not to fail with this and just get 2 of the Sarris eggs for the kids and not one for myself, LOL.