If asked, I can think of a hundred benefits to having a romantic getaway. Aside from having adult conversations, enjoying a meal and drinks, watching movies without being interrupted a hundred times, and making sure to hit a pool during some part of each day, I would have to say renting bikes and exploring aimlessly is one of absolute top things to do with my hubby.
Don’t get me wrong, we’ve done amazing bike tours with the kids (in Vermont) too. But you always have to think about the kids getting tired, restless, or hungry at any inappropriate moment which can easily result in a full-on meltdown.
After walking around Philly for a couple of days we noticed a cool Bike Share program run by Indego throughout most of the city. Great weather, and plenty of time to explore, we hopped on and took off. Also, it’s one of the best ways to learn facts about Philadelphia.
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The Benefits of Indego’s Philadelphia Bike Share Program
Apparently, when we arrived in Philly in July 2015, the program was only about one month old. In other words, the bikes were totally new. There were plenty of stations for us to choose from, all within walking distance from our hotel in Historic District of Philadelphia.
The way the program works, if you are not living there and don’t buy the monthly pass, which is super affordable, is that you can rent the bikes for half an hour.
For every half hour, it’s $4 and it just adds up the time as you go.
You can also stop and go. For example, if you want to take the bike out and head to a museum, which most have stations, that works great.
We did that for the Rocky Museum, really known as: Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The ride from Historic District to the museum is about 15 minutes or more, depending on if you want to take a slower way. And once you get here, just pop it back into the station area, that’s when the clock stops ticking. Have fun posing as Rocky, or do the real deal and actually go inside, which we didn’t do.
Then get back on the bike. You’ll have to start the payment all over again.
This can be done for many attractions of the city.
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Philadelphia’s Bike Routes
We were truly impressed with the well done bike lanes in most of the city. Since this is relatively new, the bike lanes will be expanding. But for now, it was really easy to get around. Even in the areas where there were no lanes. Not as safe, though.
The routes take you all the way up to Fairmont Park, which is a humongous park running along Schuylkil River.
Just the park area itself took us almost one hour. I would even go as far as to say, if you do this, bring some picnic food, easily to fit in the carriage of the bike, and enjoy downtime here.
The park is massive, with plenty to stop and see. And is a great place to enjoy nature inside a booming city.
At the end of the day, we took the bikes out for over five hours and it was one of our absolute best highlights while visiting Philly.
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