Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood is home to many of the city's universities, but it also has a distinct lacking in available hotels to accommodate the influx of visitors the colleges receive. Our visit to the Hampton Inn University / Medical Center is our first entry covering the Oakland hotel scene, and we wanted to answer very important question: is it worth your visit?
Jeremy
Taking in the Pittsburgh Opera at the Benedum Center
When it comes to live performances in the city, Pittsburgh has no shortage of venues and performing arts groups looking to entertain.
During a recent trip down to the Cultural District I was lucky enough to take in a dress rehearsal screening of the Pittsburgh Opera's rendition of Salome. Between enjoying the ambiance of one of our favorite performing arts venues, the Benedum Center, and taking in the show, it was yet another incredible night out in downtown Pittsburgh.
Raccoon Creek State Park – A Massive Park to Explore
Raccoon Creek State Park is a 7,500 acre park located about 30 miles west of Pittsburgh. With a 100+ acre lake, a 300+ acre wildflower reserve, over 40 miles of hiking trails, and relatively little infrastructure beyond these, this park is perfect for those who want to experience the great outdoors as it was meant to be.
During our recent visit we decided to try out two of the most popular hiking trails, the Forest Trail and Lake Trail, to capture a cross-section of the nature this park offers.
The Quest for the Best Reuben in Pittsburgh
When it comes to eating sandwiches at restaurants, aside from the traditional burger or a unique and gourmet oddity, odds are good we're going to defer to one of our favorites: the Reuben.
This sandwich has just about everything we could ask for in a go-to choice.  A mound of corned beef, a handful of sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and a generous slathering of Thousand Island dressing is enough to make us happy if we're in the mood for our favorite sandwich.
Unfortunately, not all restaurants are equal when it comes to sandwich making, and more often than not the Reuben is the hardest to get right. But when they do, odds are good that they can make anything delicious and are a good spot worth returning to in order to try more creations.
As a result, our quest to find Pittsburgh's best Reuben sandwich was born.
Note: In the past, our quest style articles organized Reubens in various categories from below average to excellent. Since then, we have decided to remove any category style tier. That said, Reubens in this article loosely ordered by increasing preference in this article. So if you want to see our very favorites, scroll to the end!
Exploring Pittsburgh Without Your Own Car – Zipcar Edition
In our series, Exploring Pittsburgh Without Your Own Car, we want to put ourselves in the shoes of visitors and locals who navigate the city through means other than using their own car. The reason for this is because while many visitors and locals in Pittsburgh own their own vehicles, this is not the case for everyone as many choose to not have their own cars to cut costs or enjoy many other benefits of being car-free.
For those who fall into this category, you then have to look at alternative options that are available- be it public transportation, private transportation services, your own feet or bike, or others. Each of these has its own nuances and cases where it is the most practical, and it is our goal in this series to test the different methods ourselves to see how practical they are for people in the city.
In this edition, our friends at Zipcar asked us to take a car out for a spin when we mentioned we were planning an IKEA run for a big purchase. As Zipcar has over 80 cars scattered around the city, we knew it would be a good feature in this series, and this entry was born.
Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Zipcar. As always, all opinions are our own.
Doors Open Pittsburgh – Exploring Our Historic Buildings
Doors Open has since expanded to include tours throughout the city, focusing on specific neighborhoods and boroughs throughout the year. In 2023, the two largest tours will take place in Millvale on June 17th and South Side on September 23rd. The downtown tour as outlined below is likely not taking place in 2023.
Doors Open Pittsburgh is a new annual event in the city where local businesses and public offices open their doors to give residents a behind-the-scenes look at their architecture, interior designs, and inner-workings. As it is our quest to experience everything Pittsburgh has to offer, we found this event to be a great way for us to see a side of the city that is normally removed from the public eye.
After exploring countless properties downtown over the course of the weekend, we have decided to share some of our favorites today in order to inspire you to get out and check out the next Doors Open event!
(Note– Several of the properties featured below are open to the public outside of the Doors Open event, so in some cases you may not have to wait until the next event date to go explore!)
Blue Dust Review – A Gastropub Celebrating the Steel City
The term blue dust may not be one you know of unless you grew up in and around the steel industry. This is the term for hematite-rich iron ore which was known for covering worker's clothing with a blue hue from a long day's work in the mill.
In fact, we did not know about this term until visiting the Carrie Furnaces in Rankin, PA, where our tour guide recommended us to visit a little gastropub nearby with the same name of this colorful material.
Not being one to turn down a recommendation when given to us, we decided to continue our Steel City experience with a visit to the Blue Dust gastropub across the river in Homestead.
Deer Lakes Park – A Hidden Gem North of Pittsburgh
Deer Lakes Park in West Deer Township is a 1,180 acre park that is known for its man-made lakes that are stocked with numerous types of fish for residents' use. Although these are beautiful in their own right, the thing we love most about this one is the hiking trails in the woods!
Halloween in Pittsburgh at Kennywood Phantom Fright Nights
Kennywood absolutely loves going all out around the holidays, and no event is perhaps more extreme than the Phantom Fright Nights in the month of October.
During this event, Kennywood transforms itself into a theme park of horrors with several haunted houses, many scare zones, and several of the park's best rides open to enjoy.
When our friends at the park invited us out to enjoy the scares, you know we had to go.
Haunted Pittsburgh – Downtown Ghost Tour for a Fright
Pick any city in the world, and odds are good there are a few ghost stories to be told. Pittsburgh is no different, and the city once described as “hell with the lid off” is said to be just as haunted as the rest.
To seek out the city's supernatural side, we booked a tour with Haunted Pittsburgh to learn about some of downtown Pittsburgh's most famous hauntings.