Things to Do in Pittsburgh
I spent 5 years as a tour guide and captain for Just Ducky Tours, so i’ve got a whole lot of Pittsburgh knowledge and pride! My head is filled with useless jokes and random facts, but truly…. the city of Pittsburgh is an awesome place and I think you’re going to have a great time in our beloved city!
The Cultural District
The Pittsburgh Cultural District is very walkable, and it hosts traveling broadway shows, a fantastic resident symphony, a variety of art galleries and small theaters, comedy shows, etc. We may not be known world wide for our theater district, but we get all the big shows that are known world wide, we’re the best kept secret destination! While you’re down there, eat at “Meat and Potatoes” and if you like whiskey…. “Butcher and the Rye” is going to absolutely blow your mind!
The Duquesne Incline
Pittsburgh’s famous for it’s Inclines- a weird train that drive up a hill with gravity, and the weight of fat people in the other car propelling you towards the sky. We used to have 17 working inclines, now we’ve got two- The Duquesne Incline and the Monongahela Incline. The Monongahela is older, but it’s run by the port authority and has a crappy view from the top, if you ever thought “I really like the seats on a city bus, I wonder what it would be like if we placed those on a historic monument from 1870 and we rode around on that”- then this one’s for you! This one isn’t for you, take the other one.
The Duquesne incline is run by a hystorical society, it’s beautiful. There’s ample parking at the base, and the view from the top is EPIC. Take it during golden hour and get a badass view from the top of a hill of the entire city skyline- plus there’s bars up there!
The Strip District
The strip district is our food/market district on the edge of the city. There’s some realllllly cool shops down there, some great restaurants, and some fine bars. Hit up Wholey’s Fish market to be blown away by one of the finest places to get seafood in the US. Our market makes Pike’s Market in Seattle look lame! Ya, our guys aren’t throwing fish back and forth, but if you’re a dick to them or ask them nicely- I bet they’ll throw a fish at ya! Get a bottle of their fresh squeezed orange juice, its life changing!
Primanti Brothers Sandwiches- our famous and particularly weird sandwich which boasts the coleslaw and French fries directly on the sandwich, get “The pittsburgher”, it’s not amazing, but it’s good enough food. If you want a real meal, Penn Avenue Fish market makes some amazing sit down sandwiches!
Explore “The Pennsylvania Macaroni Company” for some insanely good olives and cheese selections, hit up the “Parma Sausage Company” for their amazing sausages, prosciutto, and other great meats, and check out “Labads” for some wildly good medeteranian eats.
Breweries
We have A LOT of breweries! Seriously, a lot.
Hitchhiker Brewing company and Dancing Gnome are my favorites north of the city, East end Brewery rocks, and honestly… I don’t even want to list any more out. There’s like 60 breweries, get some good beer, it’s available.
If you want to grab some beers to go while you’re up here at the forge- “Hampton Beer Outlet” is just down the street and they have a remarkable selection!
SPORTS
No one likes the Pirates, myself included. Our professional baseball team truly sucks, so go to a game! Seriously, it’s super cheap and our stadium is AWESOME. Go watch the pirates lose, it’ll be fun, I promise!
The steelers on the other hand, we take our football pretty seriously. It’s a BIG party when there’s a home game, but tickets are pretty pricy. The penguins are our hockey team, they’re good, it’s fun, it’s a fun option.
Seriously though, the best bang for the buck is a pirates game- it’s a good time!
Take a Tour!
Explore our city via the water thanks to The Gateway Clipper Fleet, via a double decker bus through The Pittsburgh Tour Company, or any of several other tour companies and options.
Museums and zoos
We’ve got a really amazing set of museums!
Check out The Carnegie Museum of Natural history- it’s all the coolest things that rich asshole Andrew Carnegie bought up from around the world specifically not to share with anyone. Luckily, he died, so we get to see his dinosaurs!
The Andy Warhol museum is the largest single artist museum in the world, Andy Warhol was from Pittsburgh, and we like his weird stuff. “The Mattress Factory” is cool, its modern art- worth checking out. “Phipps Conservency” is a big wild indoor plant zoo filled with famous dale chihulli glass and it’s really cool, it’s seriously cool. The Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG aquarium is quite good, the aquarium has gone through a major renovation and it’s world class. Pittsburgh is also the home to “The National Aviary” the countries only federal bird zoo. We recently accidentally released a massive eagle that was a gift from the Russian government to the United States, and for a week or so it reigned terror on the north side before eventually being caught by a comedic and stereotypical nerd with a giant butterfly net. It disapointly ate no dogs during it’s visit to the great outdoors, despite spending all it’s time in a series of dog parks.
Architecture
Frank Loyd Wright’s house “Falling Water” is about an hour south of the city, it’s cool- but it’s not that cool. There’s plenty of other cool architecture throughout the city- drive around the “Mexican war streets” in the north side, where no Mexican wars have been faught- but the houses are cool.
Outdoors
Go for a hike, visit a farm, catch a concert, we’ve got cool stuff within an hour of the city!
White water rafting, rock climbing, people even run for recreational reasons!