Pittsburgh in the spring

Whether you live here or travel here, Pittsburgh is more fun than you think!  For a straightforward list of the biggest kid sites, look at Kidsburgh, which includes the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, the Carnegie Science Center (which has a great Sports Works facility included in admission where your kids can bungee jump, ride a virtual roller coaster, and lots of other physical goodies), and the Children’s Museum of Pittsbrgh.  But there are fun quirky things to do with your kids around every corner.  Free fun can be had at any number of Pittsburgh’s awesome playgrounds.  My family’s favorite is the Blue Slide Park in Squirrel Hill, but there are tons of them, mostly in our two biggest parks, Schenley and Frick, both of which are also laced with walking and hiking trails.

Just Ducky Tours on the South Side feature old WWII vehicles that drive directly from land into water and your kid might even get to drive it;  D’s Dogs in Regent square has a range of vegetarian and meat dogs, and one of the city’s largest beer selections.  Then walk on down to the Forbes & Braddock Playground and digest for a while.  On the other side of town in Lawrenceville, find the Kickback Pinball Cafe, a great soup-and-sandwich spot for tweens, teens, and parents interested in pinball!  Downtown in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District you will find Toonseum, a comic book museum whose current exhibit covers women comic artists.  Their hours are abbreviated, so check their site.  If your kids are builders or fans of Legos and K’nex, see what’s going on at Snapology in the South Hills.  Their new Discovery Center offers classes and camps themed with Star Wars, Minecraft, stop-gap animation, and more.  They also offer open play for a fee and a new mini-fig trading station, just bring one to trade!  If you’re here in May, the International Children’s Festival offers a wide range of indoor and outdoor activities and performances.

On your way into town from the East, stop at the Big Mac Museum, commemorating the famous sandwich’s inventor from right here in greater Pittsburgh.  Take a picture beside the giant Big Mac inside the restaurant and enjoy the old-time atmosphere.  And if you like quirky and kitsch, check out this list of things to do at Quirky Travel Guy’s site!

If you have history buffs, Pittsburgh offers sites related to the French and British fighting at Fort Pitt and it’s predecessor, Fort Duquesne, during America’s early formation, or for labor historians, find the cemetery where victims of the 1892 Homestead Strike are buried and ride the Duquesne Incline as workers of the past did every day.  Pittsburgh is a big sports and sports history place, as well.  So come and explore a city praised for its sports, its industrial heritage, and its renewal as a city of the future, focused on education and medicine.