How to Road Trip from Ontario to Pittsburgh with Kids

Pittsburgh had never even crossed my mind as a destination. I couldn’t place it on a map. What’s in Pittsburgh anyway? Apparently, my brother-in-law’s dream job, my favourite hotel I’ve stayed in with kids, and my favourite Children’s Museum.

A month after my sister and brother-in-law moved to Pittsburgh, my mom and I drove down with my two boys. I was on maternity leave with Auden, who was 7 months old, and Solen was 2.5 years old. Here’s how we made the road trip to Pittsburgh with our sanity intact.

First Stop

From Toronto to Pittsburgh is about a 5 hour trip, plus border crossing time.

According to Google maps, the trip is five and a half hours from where we live, but we made two stops to stretch our legs. We first stopped at the Angola Travel Plaza in New York State for a fairly quick stop for washrooms, food, and a quick stretch. 

Second Stop

Our second stop was in Pennsylvania at the Grove City Premium Outlets. There was an old-school dangerous wooden playground that the kids enjoyed, as well as food, washrooms, and a lot of stores that our little kids had no patience for.

We thought we had left just about an hour for the last stretch of the trip, but the traffic on the highway came to a standstill as we approached the city and we spent an extra hour inching along the asphalt. Apparently this is typical of Pittsburgh, so time your trip carefully or pack your patient pants.

Read what we bring with us for a road trip with kids, here.

A Bad, a Good, and a Great Hotel

We stayed in Pittsburgh for about a week and decided to try 3 different hotels to give us a bit of variety and an idea of where we’d stay on future trips.

Our first night was at the Hyatt Place Pittsburgh – North Shore, next to PNC Park. It was bad. We weren’t comfortable with the cleanliness with the two little kids so we looked elsewhere.

We ended up at what has remained my favourite hotel I have ever stayed at with the kids – the Homewood Suites, Downtown Pittsburgh. (Not an ad.) 

It was almost new at the time. The rooms were big and spotless. They had a crib for Auden. Our stay included a buffet breakfast AND an evening social (Monday to Friday) that included great food and one alcoholic beverage. The food was plentiful enough for us to call it dinner, and we were able to take our noisy children outside to the patio to eat. It felt restauranty without the challenges of kids in a restaurant. Plus, it was free!

If you don’t want to eat at the hotel, the nearby Strip District has a wide variety of options within walking distance. The pool was also clean and free of other people. Parking is not cheap, but that was expected in a big city.

We also spent a couple of nights at the SpringHill Suites by Marriott in Bakery Square. It’s a little further from the centre of the city and it isn’t within walking distance of a lot of the main attractions we saw, but it was a nice, clean hotel with breakfast included for a reasonable price. It was close to Target, Trader Joe’s, and a nice park called Mellon Spray Park.

The Homewood Suites would be our first choice for a return trip to Pittsburgh, but the SpringHill Suites was also a good choice.

How to Get Around

As with most trips we take, we did a lot of walking. It’s cheap, easy, and a great way to get a feel for the city. There are also pedestrian paths for walkers and bikers. That being said, Pittsburgh has a lot of steep hills and a lot of bridges. We drove a few times to see more of the city and make a couple of trips to Target.

Parking is typical of big cities. It’s expensive and difficult to find the closer you are to the downtown area. Parking lots for stores like Target are usually free.

Pros of a Road Trip to Pittsburgh:

• Easy drive in good weather
• Much warmer temperatures than Ontario (it’s almost directly south of us)
• Reasonable length of driving time for young families
• Lots to do and see for a variety of interests

Cons of a Road Trip to Pittsburgh:

• Traffic coming into the city was terrible
• Not too many options for stops along the way

Read on to hear about 8 of the best things we saw in Pittsburgh with young kids.