To offer tourists and locals a deeper taste of the city, the Philadelphia Visitor Center and Philadelphia250 are hosting a series of 20 free tours as part of the Neighborhood Jawnts Tour Series, which explores a different area of the city each weekend through October.

Neighborhood Jawnts include five guided tours each weekend, with one on Friday, two on Saturday, and two on Sunday.

The tours are “a chance to make sure that we really provided an opportunity for people to explore all the different neighborhoods, communities, cultures, and diversity of our city,” said Kathryn Ott Lovell, president and chief executive of the Philadelphia Visitor Center and Philadelphia250. “So we decided that we would do 23 tours of 20 different neighborhoods, a different neighborhood being featured every weekend of tourism season throughout 2026.”

With the continuous celebration of America’s 250th, Neighborhood Jawnts was created to provide people with a deeper understanding of the city. By working closely with community leaders, organizers were able to invite people to 20 unique tours across Philadelphia.

“Once we decided on the neighborhoods, we engaged some consultants to help, and we identified community leaders in each of those neighborhoods,” Lovell said. “We had the consultants do the research around the history of those communities and then met with the community leaders to find out, what are the anecdotes? What are the special spaces for someone who lives there? And so we basically curated, mapped and scripted the tours.”

Lovell said that 10 of the tours were created from scratch, while five were preexisting tours run by North Philly Black Freedom Jawn. The final five were also preexisting tours, running in areas like Africatown, Germantown and the Ninth Street Market that agreed to be included.

The Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy tour last month started at the Philadelphia Visitor Center, and made its way to Zsa’s Ice Cream, the first stop in Mt. Airy. Throughout the tour, guides took turns explaining each landmark’s historical context. Besides Zsa’s, the stops included the Pelham Historic District, the French Village, the English Village, Sedgwick Farms, Philadelphia Cricket Club, Wissahickon Inn and the Germantown Avenue shopping district.

At the tour’s end, guides allowed participants to get off for approximately 30 minutes for some light shopping before either choosing to stay or ride back on the bus to the Visitor Center.

“Eighty to 90 percent of the people on the tours are local residents,” Lovell said, “which I love because they really are just folks that want to get to know their city and connect with other people from the city.”

Lasting a little over three hours, the tour gave participants a deep look into the architecture and history of Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy. The tour guides passed around images that showcased the different types of architecture found throughout the area.

Not only are these tours providing tourists and residents a way to celebrate each area of Philadelphia, but they bring a new way to commemorate America’s 250th.

“Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods,” Lovell said. “And we want to highlight those stories, those cultures, those communities, those histories of the neighborhoods that make Philly, Philly.”

For more information, visit phlvisitorcenter.com/neighborhood-jawnts-tour-series. The tours are free but registration is required. New Jawnts are added weekly on Fridays at noon.