Things to do in the burbs

Aldie Mansion

Heritage Conservancy's headquarters and the mansion where half of Doylestown's weddings seem to land. You don't need an invitation, though: the conservancy opens it for public tours and talks, and volunteers keep the garden beds sharp from spring through fall.

85 Old Dublin Pike

Anson B. Nixon Disc Golf Course

A disc golf course inside Anson B. Nixon Park on the north side of Kennett. Wooded and free to play, it is an easy way to spend a morning outdoors.

★★★★★★★★★★4.6 (99) on Google

405 N Walnut Rd

Anson B. Nixon Park

110 acres stretching from Kennett Square Borough into Kennett Township, just off State Street, with two ponds, three miles of walking trails, a 250-year-old beech grove, and disc golf. Open sunrise to sunset, every day.

★★★★★★★★★★4.7 (823) on Google

405 N. Walnut Street

Aquetong Spring Park

Spring water cascades over a waterfall and meanders downstream through 48 township acres off Route 202 at Lower Mountain Road, acquired by Solebury Township in 2009. The build-out stays light: trails, benches, overlooks, and directional signs.

6294 Lower Mountain Road

Ardmore Avenue Community Center

The neighborhood community center on Ardmore Ave in South Ardmore. A nonprofit gathering spot rather than an attraction, with programming that shifts through the year, so check the calendar before you go.

122 Ardmore Ave

Ardmore Library

The Lower Merion Library System branch on Ardmore Ave, a block from the community center. One card works across the whole system, and there is a quiet room here when you need one.

★★★★★★★★★★4.5 (31) on Google

108 Ardmore Ave

Ardmore Music Hall

The concert hall on East Lancaster Ave, and the reason plenty of people first drive into Ardmore after dark. Long-timers still call it 23 East, after the club that had the room before.

★★★★★★★★★★4.7 (2k) on Google

23 E Lancaster Ave

Artelo Hotel

A boutique hotel on Birch Street, just off downtown Kennett Square's State Street. It's one of the newer places to stay in the borough.

★★★★★★★★★★4.9 (252) on Google

201 Birch St

Artworks Fine Arts & Crafts

An art and craft gallery on South Union Street, hung with work from local makers. Worth a wander when you're after a one-of-a-kind gift.

126 S Union St

Axiom Contemporary

Contemporary art gallery in a Coulter Ave storefront, a block off the Lancaster Avenue strip. Shows rotate, so it is worth checking what is hanging before you walk over.

★★★★★★★★★★4.6 (10) on Google

92 Coulter Ave

The Bookhouse Hotel

A book-themed boutique hotel on South Union Street, with shelves of reading and a lounge downstairs. Good to know about when out-of-town guests need a bed within walking distance of downtown.

130 S Union St

Bowman's Hill Tower

A 125-foot fieldstone tower raised between 1929 and 1931 atop Bowman's Hill, a few miles south of New Hope in Washington Crossing Historic Park. On a clear day the top gives you a 14-mile sweep of the Delaware and the farmland around it.

1112 River Road

Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve

More than 700 native plant species grow along the trails of the Pidcock Creek valley, a few minutes south of town on River Road. The on-site nursery sells over 200 native species, many grown from locally sourced seed, so the garden can follow you home.

1635 River Road

Brandywine Valley Symphony

A community orchestra based in Kennett Square, with a season of classical concerts. Catch a performance if that's your kind of evening.

★★★★★★★★★★4.4 (5) on Google

206 E State St

The Bucks County Children's Museum

Nine thousand square feet of hands-on exhibits built around Bucks County itself, including a Delaware Canal you run by cranking miniature locks to raise and lower the water. Aimed at the 12-months-to-7 crowd, so it's the rainy-Saturday move for a few short years before your kid ages out.

500 Union Square Dr

Bucks County Civil War Library and Museum

A serious Civil War research library and museum room on North Broad, run by people who can cite regiments from memory. Small and deep, the opposite of a gift-shop museum.

at Garden Alley

Bucks County Playhouse

A converted 1790 grist mill on the Delaware that's been staging shows since 1939, where Grace Kelly made her professional debut and Robert Redford premiered "Barefoot in the Park." Summers still mean full-scale musicals like this season's South Pacific and Rent, with dinner on the Playhouse Deck over the river before curtain.

★★★★★★★★★★4.7 (1.4k) on Google

70 S Main St

Cedar Hill Road Park

87 acres where the real draw is the nature trail with bird blinds and an outdoor classroom, not the playground. A limestone walking trail and grass volleyball courts fill out the rest.

449 Cedar Hill Road

Central Park & Kids' Castle

Kids' Castle, the town's multi-level castle playground, sits at the center of Doylestown Township's 155.5-acre flagship park. Three-plus miles of trail link out to the 202 Parkway Trail, with an amphitheater, a sensory trail, and pickleball courts besides.

★★★★★★★★★★4.8 (2.3k) on Google

425 Wells Road

Chandler Mill Nature Preserve

45 acres at the meeting of the Red Clay and Bucktoe creeks, part of an Audubon-designated Important Bird Area and a 30-year Cornell Lab of Ornithology bird study. The 47-foot Chandler Mill Bridge, on the National Register of Historic Places, reopened to walkers and bikes in 2020; no dogs on the trails.

★★★★★★★★★★4.0 (4) on Google

541 Chandler Mill Road

Chapman Gallery

Fine-art gallery on East State, hung with a collector's restraint. Twenty minutes here beats an hour of scrolling art you can't touch.

46 E State St

Chestnut Creek Park

Eighty acres given over almost entirely to football — home turf of the Horsham Hawks, with three full-size lighted fields and two half-size ones for when the schedule runs past sunset.

273 Lower State Road

College Settlement

The main grounds of College Settlement, the Horsham nonprofit that's been sending city kids to summer camp in these woods for decades. Day programs, camp sessions, and rentable land along the creek.

★★★★★★★★★★4.6 (56) on Google

600 Witmer Rd

College Settlement Camps-Headwaters Of Pennypack Creek

The camp grounds where the Pennypack Creek starts, a nonprofit running summer sessions and outdoor education in the Horsham woods. Trails and open field far enough from the road to forget it's there.

★★★★★★★★★★4.8 (41) on Google

Unnamed Road

The Community Labyrinth

A stone walking labyrinth beside the Michener, open to anyone with ten spare minutes. Doylestown's quietest attraction, on purpose.

138 S Pine St

County Theater

Doylestown's art-deco nonprofit cinema, running first-run indies and classics under a marquee that's been lighting State Street since 1938. Cheap tickets, real butter, serious air conditioning.

20 E State St

The Creeper Gallery

Donna Marian has run this gothic gallery out of a Main Street storefront since 2013, selling macabre fine art, Victorian mourning antiques, and the hand-built Gothic Dead Dolls she's known for. Ask about the Red Room, where haunted objects get vetted by paranormal teams before they go up for sale.

129 S Main St

Cypress Beach Park

A neighborhood park off E Cypress Street, on the east side of Kennett Square.

500 E Cypress St

Deep Meadow Park

Horsham's baseball headquarters: 11 fields across 55 acres, home turf for Horsham Little League, ringed by a one-mile limestone walking loop. A playground, a batting cage, and a 10-station exercise circuit cover everyone not in cleats.

1020 Horsham Road

Delaware Canal State Park

The towpath runs 58.9 miles from Easton to Bristol, the last fully intact canal left from America's towpath era, and the flat, shaded New Hope stretch is the walk or bike ride you point visitors toward. Mules hauled coal barges down this water into the 1930s, and the Locktender's House by the lock still lays out how the whole thing worked.

Delaware Canal State Park

Delaware Canal Trail

The flat crushed-stone towpath that runs 60 miles from Easton to Bristol, and the New Hope stretch is the gentle one: pick it up by the restored Lock 11 and walk the canal one block off Main Street, past the backs of the shops. Mule teams towed barges along here into 2006, which is why it's dead level the whole way, good for a two-mile out-and-back before dinner.

New Hope

Dharma Bums

An all-vegetarian kitchen with Far East spice in the New Hope building where Abbie Hoffman held his Dump the Pump meetings. The live-music calendar runs to serious bluegrass — IBMA Hall of Famer David Parmley has played the stage.

4935 River Rd

Doylestown Historical Society

The borough's own historical society runs walking tours, lectures, and a research archive on Doylestown's past from its South Main Street home. Thirty years in, it is now marking America's 250th with new publications and programs.

56 South Main Street

Elwell Field

Haverford Township playground and ball field on the Ardmore side of the township line. Free, open air, and the sort of park that serves the blocks around it rather than the whole county.

★★★★★★★★★★4.8 (13) on Google

22 07-172:000

Everybody's Playground

Accessible community playground inside Lukens Park, built so kids of every ability can get on the equipment. Ramps, shade, and enough to climb on to burn off an afternoon.

540A Dresher Rd

Ferry Landing Park

A pocket of riverbank at the foot of Ferry Street where the Delaware slides past and Lambertville sits across the water. Washington's army crossed here at Coryell's Ferry in June 1778 on the way to Monmouth; now it's a few sculptures, some benches, and the ducks.

E Ferry St

Fitness Court at Lukens Park

Free outdoor fitness court at Lukens Park, a bodyweight circuit of bars and stations you can run through on your own. No membership and no line; just show up and work.

Dresher Rd &

Fonthill Castle

Henry Mercer's concrete castle: 44 rooms, 18 fireplaces, over 200 windows, poured by hand with the help of a horse named Lucy. Every surface is tiled — his own Arts and Crafts work alongside Persian and Spanish pieces he collected.

East Court St & Route 313

Fonthill Park

The wooded park wrapped around Henry Mercer's concrete castle: trails, old trees, and a dog run. The castle charges admission; the woods never do.

★★★★★★★★★★4.8 (80) on Google

130 E Swamp Rd

The Francis Hotel & Suites

A boutique hotel on South Union Street, a short walk from the State Street restaurants. Good for putting up family in town for a Longwood Gardens weekend.

★★★★★★★★★★5.0 (38) on Google

205 S Union St

Gallery Gary Giordano

Painter Gary Giordano shows his own contemporary work, abstracts and figures, in a one-artist gallery at 20 W Bridge Street. You see the canvases where they're painted, straight from him.

20 W Bridge St

Gallery Piquel Main

Two storefronts at 35 and 39 N Main hung with work from more than 80 artists — landscapes, portraiture, sculpture, and a run of pop realism. Open since 2007, and when the posted hours say closed they'll still open by appointment for anyone who asks.

35 N Main St

Ghost Tours of New Hope

A lantern-led walk that leaves the corner of Main and Ferry at 8pm, covering a mile of New Hope's ghost stories: the Lady in White down by the Delaware, the restless guests at the 1727 Logan Inn. Adele Gamble has been guiding these tours since the mid-'80s, working from the research of the paranormal author who started them in 1981.

Main and

Graeme Park

The Keith House is the only surviving residence of a colonial Pennsylvania governor, anchoring the 42-acre grounds of Horsham's lone National Historic Landmark. Guided tours run Friday through Sunday; the nature trails and picnic spots are yours the rest of the time.

859 County Line Road

Havana

Live bands seven nights a week at the bottom of Main Street, running since 1978. Grab dinner on the patio, then stay for whoever's on the stage — often blues singer Christine Martucci — and dance once the tables clear.

105 S Main St

Haverford College Arboretum

The whole Haverford College campus doubles as an arboretum: labeled trees, open lawns and a pond, all of it off Lancaster Avenue and open to walk.

★★★★★★★★★★4.5 (19) on Google

370 Lancaster Ave

HeartBreath Yoga Studio

A yoga studio on Simpson Road in Ardmore, off the main Lancaster Avenue run of shops. Classes are the whole business, so check the schedule on their site before you turn up.

★★★★★★★★★★5.0 (13) on Google

201 Simpson Rd

Hellerick's Adventure Farm

Barnyard mini golf, an aerial ropes course, a silo climbing wall, goat yoga, and u-pick crops on land farmed for 232 years, since 1794. In summer, glow golf runs 8 to 9:30pm and Friday concerts go 6 to 8:30.

5500 N. Easton Road

Honey Hollow Nature Center

Four miles of trails cross the Honey Hollow watershed, a National Historic Landmark since 1969 for proving neighboring farms could manage soil and water together. The Audubon chapter behind it shortened its name from Bucks County Audubon Society in 2026; the trails stay open dawn to dusk.

2877 Creamery Road

James A. Michener Art Museum

Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings hang inside the stone walls of the 1884 Bucks County prison, which closed in 1985 and reopened as a museum in 1988, named for Doylestown's own James Michener. The collection runs to more than 2,700 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper.

138 South Pine Street

Jarrett Nature Center

A half-mile loop past pond, woods, meadow, and wetland, with interpretive signs illustrated by Hatboro-Horsham student artists. Trails are open dawn to dusk; leave the dog at home, per the center's own rule.

★★★★★★★★★★4.5 (33) on Google

411C Babylon Road

John & Peter's Place

Ween got their start on this stage, and the room has run live music seven nights a week since 1972. Grab one of 150 seats, order the 8oz burger, and you might catch a name between arena tours playing to a barful of neighbors.

96 S Main St

Kennett Classic Computer Museum, Gifts and Hobby Shop

A working museum of vintage computers on South Union Street, with a gift and hobby shop attached. Old machines you can see running, kept alive by people who love them.

126 S Union St

Kennett Flash

A nonprofit listening room off Sycamore Alley where the crowd actually shuts up for the band. Expect singer-songwriters and touring acts on a stage you can practically reach.

102 Sycamore Alley

Kennett Heritage Center

Kennett Square's local-history museum, on North Union. A good stop for the town's Underground Railroad and mushroom-country past.

★★★★★★★★★★4.0 (1) on Google

120 N Union St

Kennett Library

The town library on East State Street, in its big new building. Story times, meeting rooms, and stacks to get lost in.

320 E State St

Kennett Square Community Park

A public park in Kennett Square with open fields and green space for a picnic or a pickup game.

★★★★★★★★★★4.0 (1) on Google

Kennett Square

Kohler Park

71 acres off Horsham Road with a fishing pond, a dog park, two playground areas, and a lighted in-line street hockey court. There is even a chess table near the gazebo.

1013 Horsham Road

Lenape Park

A skinny linear park that threads between Ferry and Bridge streets along an old quarry cut, with a gazebo, a small water feature, and enough shade to eat lunch out of the sun. Locals call it the Quarry; it's easy to walk right past by the railroad tracks, and it's stood in for more than a few tiny weddings since the borough built it in 2008.

54 W Ferry St

Leveaux Pilates

A pilates studio on Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore, classes booked by the session rather than dropped in on. The schedule lives on their site.

★★★★★★★★★★5.0 (29) on Google

14 Lancaster Ave

Linwood Park

A neighborhood park on East Athens Avenue, a short walk from the middle of Ardmore. A volunteer Friends group looks after it and puts on events there through the year.

★★★★★★★★★★4.7 (109) on Google

199 E Athens Ave

The Locktender's House

The restored locktender's house at Lock 11, run by the Friends of the Delaware Canal as a small museum of how mule-drawn boats moved cargo through here for a hundred years starting in 1832. The lock out front was rebuilt to working order, the first one running on the Delaware Canal in more than 50 years.

145 S Main St

Longwood Gardens

The du Pont horticultural giant three miles northeast of town, where the Main Fountain Garden runs May 8 through October 25 and A Longwood Christmas takes over from November 20 into early January. Timed tickets are required, and it closes Tuesdays most of the year.

1001 Longwood Road

Lukens Park

Horsham Township's big park on Dresher Road, with ball fields, walking loops, and the accessible Everybody's Playground on site. Bring the kids or just do a lap.

540A Dresher Rd

Lulu’s Casita

An indoor playground on Cricket Avenue in Ardmore, set up for small kids to run at full speed with a roof over them. The answer to a rained-out Saturday morning.

★★★★★★★★★★4.6 (240) on Google

6 Cricket Ave

Marshall Mill House Preserve

40 acres of class 1 woodland with intact forest interior and a 1.5-mile loop trail that earns its incline and steps. Open dawn to dusk, leashed dogs allowed.

932 Creek Road

Meetinghouse Park

A smaller Horsham Township park on the quieter end of the local green space. Low-key spot for a walk when you don't want the crowds over at Lukens.

Horsham

Mercer Museum

Henry Mercer's poured-concrete fortress of a museum, seven stories of tools and trades from before anyone called it 'vintage.' The current exhibition on the Doan Gang — Bucks County's own Revolutionary War outlaws — runs through the end of 2026.

★★★★★★★★★★4.8 (2k) on Google

84 S Pine St

Michener Art Museum

Bucks County takes its own artists seriously, and this is where it shows them off. Do the galleries, then give the sculpture garden more time than you planned.

138 S Pine St

Moravian Pottery and Tile Works

Henry Mercer built this tile factory between 1911 and 1912, and it still presses handmade Moravian tiles today. Tour the historic workshops and watch the craftsmen at work, or make your own 3-inch tile to pick up about four weeks later.

130 E Swamp Rd

Mud Room Studio

A pottery studio on Station Road in Ardmore, a block from the train station. Whether that means a class, open studio time or a shelf of finished work is worth a call first.

★★★★★★★★★★4.4 (75) on Google

11 Station Rd

National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa

A Polish-American Catholic shrine founded in 1955 on Beacon Hill, the highest elevation in Bucks County. Sunday Mass runs in Polish at 12:30, and the grounds include a cafeteria, Polish deli, and religious-goods store.

★★★★★★★★★★4.8 (1.9k) on Google

654 Ferry Road

New Garden Flying Field

A working public airfield (FAA code N57) a few miles west of town that doubles as a spectator spot, with Cars, Coffee, & Airplanes mornings on the ramp. The Festival of Flight air, car, and antique-aircraft show returns August 8 and 9, 2026.

1235 Newark Road

New Hope Arts

An arts center in the old Worthington's Garage, which sold and fixed cars for five decades before the sculptors moved in. Time your visit for the annual juried sculpture show — the 21st edition hung more than 90 works from 58 artists in metal, stone, wood, and clay.

2 Stockton Ave

New Hope Arts and Crafts Festival

Every September, 160-some juried artists take over the New Hope-Solebury High School lot with oils, blown glass, and wearable art. Five dollars gets you in, and a free shuttle runs you back to Main Street when your arms are full.

180 W Bridge St

New Hope Historical Society

The 1784 fieldstone house of Benjamin Parry, whose New Hope Mills eventually handed the town its name. Its eleven rooms are furnished a generation apart, walking you from 1775 to 1900 without leaving Main Street.

45 S Main St

New Hope Railroad

Heritage trains have departed the 1891 Witch's Hat station on West Bridge Street since 1966, rolling south through the Buckingham Valley on tracks first laid by the North-East Pennsylvania Railroad. The lineup now includes four-person pedal-assist rail bikes if you would rather ride the rails at 5 mph yourself.

32 W. Bridge Street

The New Hope Winery

A winery on Lower York Road with a tavern set in a mid-18th-century barn. The Note, its 250-seat music room, keeps a steady calendar of live acts and tribute bands.

6123 Lower York Road

New Leaf Sensory Garden

11 acres of wetlands and meadow with a half-mile trail, a pollinator garden, Brandywine Red Clay's working apiary, and interactive sensory stations along the way. Kid bait of the best sort; leave the dog home.

776 Rosedale Road

Packer Park

A small Lower Merion Township park on Llanfair Circle, ringed by Ardmore houses. Open green space for a walk or an hour outside rather than a whole afternoon.

★★★★★★★★★★3.8 (6) on Google

30-50 Llanfair Cir

Parry Mansion Museum

Benjamin Parry built this stone house in 1784, and it's now home to the New Hope Historical Society. The guided tour runs through 11 rooms, each furnished to a different era across the five Parry generations who lived here, so the place shifts from candlelight to electric bulbs as you walk it.

45 S Main St

Patricia Hutton Galleries

Patricia Hutton's West State gallery, long on Bucks County landscape painters. Where the county's art tradition still hangs for sale.

47 W State St

Peace Valley Lavender Farm

Pick-your-own lavender rows each summer until the season runs out, usually by mid-July. The farm shop opens Wednesday through Sunday with plants, dried bunches, bath and body goods, and culinary lavender.

802 New Galena Road

Peace Valley Park

1,500 county acres a few minutes north of the borough, with seasonal rentals of rowboats, canoes, pedal boats, and kayaks. A nature center, fishing, playgrounds, and five picnic pavilions fill out the park.

★★★★★★★★★★4.8 (3.8k) on Google

264 Creek Road

Peddler's Village

Sixty-plus locally owned shops, plus restaurants, gardens, and the Giggleberry Fair family playscape, just west of New Hope in Lahaska. It has pulled in day-trippers for more than 60 years, and USA Today's 10Best readers named it the country's number-one shopping center in 2026.

Route 202 and Street Road

Pennypack Farm & Education Center

Working community farm and CSA on Mann Road, with growing fields and education programs open to members and volunteers. Join for a summer share and end up weeding on Saturdays.

685 Mann Rd

Pivot Ballroom on the Main Line

A ballroom dance studio and event floor on East Lancaster Avenue in downtown Ardmore. The kind of room you go to in order to learn a step, not just watch one.

49 E Lancaster Ave

Power Line Trail

5.3 miles of 12-foot-wide asphalt running from Blair Mill Road to Biwood Road along a utility right-of-way. Flat and paved the whole way, which makes it the township's default bike-and-evening-walk route.

540A Dresher Road (Lukens Park)

Principal Park

A small public park on S Mill Road, toward the south end of Kennett Square.

220 S Mill Rd

Puck Live by Great Barn

Live music room on Printers Alley, rebooted by the Great Barn crew, with a bar that keeps pace. Doylestown's stage when the theaters go dark.

1 Printers Aly