Across Pennsylvania the Odd Way
Pittsburgh to Philadelphia without using the turnpike for anything interesting — a UFO acorn, two hills that roll the wrong way, a town on fire, and the prison that invented solitary confinement.
5 stops · 2 days · Pennsylvania · roughly 305 miles point to point
See the whole route and everything odd beside it
OddWay draws your route first, then plots every stop that falls inside the detour you're willing to make. No hunting through a list to work out what is actually on the way.
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Every one of the 5 places in the index. Plan a route and the map narrows to what's actually near it.
The direct route between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is five hours of turnpike. This is not that. It is roughly the same journey with the interesting parts left in, and it takes two days because the good bits are on two-lane roads.
The shape of it
You start with a hill in North Park that rolls the wrong way, drop south to Kecksburg for the acorn behind the fire station, and pick up a second gravity hill at New Paris — which is worth doing precisely because you have just done one, and the effect is identical in a completely different landscape.
Then the long middle stretch to Centralia, which is the only stop on this route that is not fun.
Philadelphia and Eastern State finish it.
Centralia deserves a warning
It is a borough with residents, not a ruin. The Graffiti Highway was buried in 2020 and no longer exists. You can legally drive the current alignment of Route 61 and look from the road, and that is the whole of the legal access.
Go, but go understanding that five people live there and the ground vents carbon monoxide.
Where to break it
Somewhere around Bedford or Harrisburg, depending on how long you spend at the gravity hills. Both have places to stay and neither is a detour.
The Route
North Park Gravity Hill
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Stop on McKinney Road at Kummer Road, in North Park, put the car in neutral, and it appears to roll uphill. The slope is an illusion — the surrounding land hides the true horizon, so a gentle descent reads as a climb — which has never once stopped anyone trying it with a bottle of water. A public road, so pull over sensibly and watch for traffic.
Kecksburg UFO Monument
Kecksburg, Pennsylvania
Something came down in the woods here on the evening of 9 December 1965, seen across several states. Astronomers called it a meteor; witnesses described an acorn-shaped object and a military convoy. The village settled the matter its own way: the large acorn outside the volunteer fire department is a prop built for an Unsolved Mysteries episode in 1990, and it has stood there ever since.
Gravity Hill
New Paris, Pennsylvania
Put the car in neutral at the marked spot on Gravity Hill Road and it rolls, slowly, in the wrong direction. The surrounding hills hide the true horizon well enough that your eyes lose the argument with the road. Bring a bottle of water to pour out and watch. There are two such stretches in the area.
Centralia Mine Fire
Centralia, Pennsylvania
A coal seam under the borough caught fire in 1962 and is still burning. Almost everyone was bought out and moved; the street grid remains, the buildings mostly do not, and steam still works its way up through the ground on cold mornings.
Eastern State Penitentiary
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Eastern State Penitentiary is a preserved 19th-century prison where visitors can explore cell blocks, prison yards and exhibits about incarceration, including Al Capone's restored cell. The historic site operates as a museum, while separate Halloween programming adds large-scale haunted attractions during the fall.