The Wissahickon Gorge Inside City Limits

A seven-mile gorge through northwest Philadelphia. Walking the trails you will forget — completely, genuinely — that you're in the sixth-largest city in the US. The gorge is that deep and the creek is that insistent.

Forbidden Drive is the main path — flat gravel, five miles along Wissahickon Creek beneath tulip poplars and hemlocks. Closed to cars. The traffic is runners, cyclists, equestrians, and occasional philosophers. The creek runs beside you the whole way — sometimes shallow and riffled, sometimes pooling deep green beneath stone bridges that were old when the Civil War started.

The Valley Green Inn at the midpoint has served food since 1850. Porch overlooking the creek, updated American menu, a burger that earns its price, and a setting that makes it feel like a country inn sharing a zip code with City Hall. October for the color. April for wildflowers — trillium, jack-in-the-pulpit, Virginia bluebells.