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Philadelphia, the country’s first and only World Heritage City, ranked #1 on Lonely Planet’s list of the 10 best places to visit in the United States in 2016.
The article and I 😉 encourage you to go beyond the clichés (yes, cheesesteaks are delicious but enough already) and explore the city’s deep history, ever-evolving neighborhoods and my fave, the thriving & exciting food scene.

Now in its sixth year, Lonely Planet’s Best in the U.S. is a curated list selected and ranked by the company’s U.S.-based editors and travel writers.
The list calls attention to the most exciting, intriguing and up-and-coming U.S. destinations worth visiting in the year ahead and it looks like Philadelphia is getting the love it so rightly deserves.

If you’re lucky enough to live here then this comes as no surprise.
Freshly crowned as the US’s first and only World Heritage City (hello Cairo, Paris and Jerusalem), it played host to Pope Francis in September and is getting set to welcome the Democratic National Convention in July.
Can you say that Philadelphia is on a roll!?
“We always love to see Philadelphia get the recognition it deserves,” said Meryl Levitz, president and chief executive of Visit Philadelphia, the main tourism marketing agency. She said the city may seem like an overnight sensation, but it’s the result of years of work and collaboration.
Yes, Philadelphia’s rich colonial history remains a draw, but the city also nurtures a vibrant restaurant scene featuring hundreds of BYOBs, celebrity chefs and even a vegan fine-dining restaurant that was nominated for a James Beard award.
Philadelphia’s diverse arts scene spans funky, Isaiah Zagar mosaics around South Street to majestic, Rodin Museum and of course, the Philadelphia Museum of Art where Stallone ran up the steps in “Rocky.”

Lonely Planet said it picks the “top 10 most exciting, intriguing and up-and-coming” destinations for the list, and called Philadelphia “a national treasure.”
Not bad for a city that I used to refer to as Philthadelphia.