Explore

Taking a Trip Back in Time at the Photo Antiquities Museum

The Photo Antiquities Museum on East Ohio Street in the North Side is the kind of place you’d pass by and not give a second thought.

We’ve known about this one for several years, but kept forgetting about it until we made visiting all of Pittsburgh’s attractions a priority for this site. As we slowly made our way through our list, the Photo Antiquities Museum kept popping up time and again. And although I love photography much more than the average person, for some reason it always got pushed back on our schedule just as it had before.

I say this as the introduction to this review to emphasize a very important point: we made a mistake waiting so long to visit.

This museum is incredible, and you do not have to be photography crazy like me to think the same.

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Big Jim’s in the Run Review – Comfort Food in Greenfield

Big Jim’s is a quintessential Pittsburgh bar and restaurant in “the run,” aka lower Greenfield. A dimly lit space with wood paneled walls, the emphasis here is on huge portions of classic Italian and Pittsburgh food.

Calzones so big they take 45 minutes to bake and don’t even fit on a single plate? Check.

Reubens piled a mile high with corned beef? Yep.

Burgers, hoagies, and salads topped with fries? That’s so Pittsburgh.

First things first, you definitely shouldn’t come here if you’re on a diet or a vegan. And you should definitely expect a wait on the weekends. If neither of those things bother you, then wear your fat pants and prepare to step back in time for a true Pittsburgh experience.

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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.

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Exploring the 1,000+ Acre Boyce Park in Plum Borough

Boyce Park, located east of Pittsburgh in the Monroeville/Plum area, is over 1,000 acres full of trails, playgrounds, picnic areas, and a few unexpected gems like ski slopes and a snow tubing area.

We recently did some hiking in the park and enjoyed the beauty of the densely wooded, quiet trails that had some of the best markings out of all of the parks in Allegheny County.

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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.

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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.

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Johnny Angel’s Ginchy Stuff – A Music Museum for the Ages

If you are a music fan who grew up in Pittsburgh over the last 50 years, odds are good you know the name Johnny Angel. Throughout the decades, Johnny built an impressive career that continues to this very day. His current band, Johnny Angel and the Halos, can be found around the region performing songs from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond.

As you can imagine, throughout his career Johnny amassed an impressive collection of memorabilia from his own shows and experiences in the music industry.

To showcase these, Johnny decided to put everything on display for the public at his store Johnny Angel’s Ginchy Stuff – a North Side staple that moved to its new home next door to the iconic Bicycle Heaven in 2016.

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10 of the Coolest Pittsburgh Houses You Can Visit

When it comes to unique Pittsburgh houses, be it the historical or downright weird, this city is full of them. Unfortunately, many of these houses are private residences that are not open to the public, which makes fully appreciating them somewhat tricky.

Throughout our quest to experience the many things to do in Pittsburgh, we’ve visited a number of the unique houses in the city and have fallen in love with several of them.

In this guide we wanted to share some of our favorites that you can also go visit!

This guide only features Pittsburgh houses we’ve personally toured. If you are looking for more details about each house, click the link inside the description to be taken to our full review. When we find more properties to explore in the future, we will update this guide accordingly! 

Note: Most every house in this guide requires advanced reservations. Many do not accept walk-up visitors.

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A Stroll Through the Thornburg Conservation Area

When I go out exploring in and around Pittsburgh, one of the things I like to do is look at the map and see what kind of public parks and spaces are near me. More often than not these turn out to be simple playgrounds or parklets that do not warrant an article, but every once in a while I discover something amazing that I never knew was there.

The Thornburg conservation area is one of those places, and after visiting this one I can safely say that I look forward to returning many times in the future.

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