Outdoors

Northwest Philadelphia has more accessible green space than anywhere else in the city, and it is not close. The Wissahickon alone is roughly 1,800 acres with more than 50 miles of trail, and it runs right through the middle of these neighborhoods. Add the Schuylkill on one side, a 365-acre nature center at the top of Roxborough, two arboretums and a canal that was reconnected to the river last year, and you have a part of the city where getting outside is not a weekend trip. It is the walk you take before work.

The Wissahickon

Wissahickon Valley Park is the reason a lot of people move up here and the reason most of them stay. Forbidden Drive, the wide wooded gravel path along the creek, is the spine of it, and it is genuinely one of the great urban trail experiences in the country. It runs 5.35 miles, it is flat, and it is open to walkers, runners, bikes and dogs.

• Forbidden Drive. Flat, wide, creekside. Good for running, biking, strollers and dogs, and the one everybody starts with.
• Thomas Mill Covered Bridge. Philadelphia’s only covered bridge, reachable on foot from Chestnut Hill.
• Valley Green Inn. Historic inn right on the creek, serving lunch, brunch and dinner. The obvious turnaround point.
• Access points. Bells Mill Road in Chestnut Hill, Cresheim Valley and Lincoln Drive in Mt. Airy, Wissahickon Avenue in Germantown, and the Ridge Avenue trailhead at 4901 Ridge in Roxborough, which is the one you can reach by train or bus.
• A local note. Do not park along Livezey Lane or Kitchen’s Lane. They are the only emergency vehicle routes into that stretch, and the Friends of the Wissahickon ask people not to.

Parks and preserves

• Morris Arboretum & Gardens, 100 E. Northwestern Ave. Ninety-two acres, more than 10,000 labeled plants, a canopy walk fifty feet up and a model railroad people genuinely love. The official arboretum of Pennsylvania, in Chestnut Hill.
• The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, 8480 Hagys Mill Rd. Three hundred and sixty-five acres and three-plus miles of trail at the top of Roxborough, founded in 1965 as one of the first urban environmental education centers in the country. Trails open daily, dawn to dusk.
• Awbury Arboretum, One Awbury Road. Fifty-five acres of meadow and old shade trees in Germantown, free to walk in, and the most overlooked big green space up here.
• Pastorius Park, Chestnut Hill. Sixteen acres with a pond, old trees and summer concerts.
• Gorgas Park, 6300 Ridge Ave. Roxborough’s twenty-acre flagship, dedicated on the Fourth of July 1893. Playground, pollinator gardens that keep winning ribbons, and a steady run of community events.
• Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve, 601 Port Royal Ave. Thirty-four acres on a reservoir that ran from 1898 to 1962. Volunteers have planted a couple of thousand trees there since 2007, and in spring the toads turn up in numbers.
• McMichael Park, Midvale at Henry. The neighborhood green in East Falls, and a registered arboretum, which surprises most people who have only walked a dog across it.
• Pretzel Park, 4300 Silverwood St. Pretzel-shaped paths, a pretzel sculpture and a weekly farmers market in Manayunk.
• Vernon Park, Germantown Ave at Chelten. Germantown’s central green space and gathering point.

Trails and the river

• Schuylkill River Trail. Runs from Center City out to Valley Forge. From Manayunk or East Falls it is a real bike commute downtown rather than a nice idea.
• Manayunk Canal Towpath. Along the historic canal just below Main Street. Worth knowing: the canal was reconnected to the Schuylkill at Flat Rock Dam in April 2025 after roughly eighty-five years stagnant, so the water moves now.
• Manayunk Bridge Trail. A converted railroad bridge six stories above the Schuylkill, running four tenths of a mile across to the Cynwyd Heritage Trail. Best views in the neighborhood.
• Kelly Drive, East Falls. Dedicated lanes for runners and cyclists, sweeping river views, and a direct connection into Fairmount Park.
• East Falls River Landing, 4530 Kelly Dr. Public river access that opened in 2022 just upstream of the Falls Bridge: a launch for kayaks and other non-motorized boats, fishing spots and benches. ADA accessible and free.
• The Falls Bridge, Kelly Dr at Calumet St. An 1895 steel truss bridge with seven-foot sidewalks and one of the best river views in the city. Go walk it soon. A full rehabilitation starts in fall 2027 and closes it to walkers and cyclists too, not just cars.

Only in NW Philly

• The Roxborough staircases. More than a dozen public stairways connecting the ridge down toward Manayunk, 1,304 steps in total. They were counted in the early 1990s by Hilma Larkin of the local historical society, who was in her seventies and climbed and photographed every one. The Roxborough Avenue stairway reopened in June 2026 after a full rebuild.
• The Manayunk Wall. The Levering Street climb gains about 240 feet in under half a mile, averaging near ten percent with pitches of sixteen to seventeen. Professional cyclists have been suffering on it since the 1980s, and the race came back up it in August 2026 after nearly a decade away.
• Germantown Kitchen Garden, 215 E. Penn St. An urban farm with a Saturday farm stand, May through October.
• The antenna farm, Roxborough. Not a park, but you cannot miss it. A couple of dozen broadcast towers near Domino Lane, some over a thousand feet, carrying most of the city’s TV and radio. At night they are the thing you navigate by.

What’s Happening This Week

Every Thursday morning we publish a calendar of what is worth leaving the house for across Northwest Philadelphia. Trail days, guided walks, service mornings in the Wissahickon, and the seasonal things that are easy to miss by a week.

One email, Thursday morning. No listings, no drip campaign, no selling. Past issues live on the events page.

Where it all is

Every place on this page sits in one of the eight neighborhoods, and each guide goes deeper on its own patch: Chestnut Hill, Mt. Airy, Germantown, West Oak Lane, Cedarbrook, Roxborough, Manayunk and East Falls.

Trail days, bird walks, guided hikes and cleanups turn up in the weekly calendar most weeks. The Friends groups that look after these places do a lot of the work that makes them worth walking, and they are usually looking for hands.