When planning a household highway journey we pulled out a map and took a take a look at all of the attainable locations to go inside 4 hours drive from our household in New Jersey, and someway Gettysburg, PA captured the curiosity of my nine-year-old. I wasn’t certain how a lot she would get out of it since I wasn’t certain what there was to do there in addition to take a look at the Battlefield and children sometimes don’t even examine the Civil War till eighth grade.
Once I began wanting into it although, I used to be stunned by all of the issues to do in Gettysburg, even for teenagers! After doing analysis and getting some assist from Destination Gettysburg, we have been in a position to put collectively a jam-packed itinerary for two days in Gettysburg that had one thing for everybody and confirmed us that there was a lot extra to Gettysburg than simply the Battlefield.
Beyond that, we discovered the Gettysburg Battlefield to be far more impactful than a area full monuments. The space’s devastating historical past had a profound influence on us, touched our hearts, and ended up being a spotlight of our journey.
So if you’re planning a household journey to Gettysburg, PA, here’s a pattern itinerary with loads of enjoyable issues to do in Gettysburg with youngsters and a pleasant stability between historical past and household enjoyable.
Things to do in Gettysburg, PA
Day One
Disclosure: Our go to, together with lodge, points of interest, excursions and a few meals have been generously hosted by Destination Gettysburg and the Hilton Garden Inn Gettysburg however the opinions are totally my very own.
Visit the Gettysburg National Military Park
I at all times suppose it’s a good suggestion to begin off your day with museums when youngsters are contemporary and fed versus later within the day. As you drive by Gettysburg you’ll be able to simply get caught up by glimpses of varied monuments and wish to get proper out on the Battlefield,
However, I consider that spending time within the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum will assist create a greater understanding of the occasions main as much as the battle and foster higher comprehension throughout your Battlefield tour.
If you haven’t accomplished so already, e-book your excursions and take a look at the Junior Ranger and National Park packages if you arrive. You will wish to begin your go to with the Cyclorama. Before we went to Gettysburg many buddies and kin stated, “You HAVE to do the Cyclorama,” however I had no thought what it actually was.
Basically earlier than there have been IMAX theaters, there have been cycloramas, that are 360 diploma work that depict a scene (on this case, the Battle of Gettysburg ) and are surrounded by artifacts and landscaped foregrounds to create a three-dimensional impact. Painted by Paul Dominque Phillipoteaux and his assistants, the Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg was first displayed in Chicago in 1883.
Before you enter the precise Cyclorama, you’ll go to a theater to look at a 20-30 minute movie about slavery and the problems main as much as the Civil War, an summary of the primary occasions of the Civil War main as much as the Battle of Gettysburg, culminating with an summary of the three days of combating that occurred in July 1863.
From there, you’ll transfer upstairs to a theater housing the Cyclorama. Position yourselves wherever alongside the rail and when the presentation begins, you’ll hear how the final day began with Pickett’s Charge. Using mild to focus on parts of the portray and sound the scene will come alive. Afterward, you’ll have a number of moments to maneuver round and take a look at the opposite parts of the portray. Be certain to search for a person standing close to a tree holding a sword, that is the place painter Phillipoteaux put himself into the image.
After taking within the Cyclorama, it would be best to spend about an hour exploring the Gettysburg Museum of the Civil War. To enable you perceive the timeline, the museum leads you thru the displays beginning with the occasions main as much as the Battle of Gettysburg and the by every of the three days of the Battle and the aftermath. Each part encompasses a video that takes excerpts from what you noticed within the Cyclorama and expands upon them to provide a greater understanding of who’s who and the Battle timeline and places.
The museum ought to hold your youngsters intrigued with so many multimedia displays. In addition to the movies, there are a lot of touchscreen, interactive displays all through the museum to carry historical past to life. It can also be an incredible preparation for a go to to the precise Battlefield. After exploring the museum, guests can even cease in to the useful resource heart to analysis any ancestors that will have fought at Gettysburg.
The customer heart is positioned on Baltimore Street, simply south of downtown Gettysburg. Plan on spending 1.5-2 hours on the park museum and customer heart.
Downtown Gettysburg
After the museum, you might begin to get a bit of hungry. I’d suggest heading into Downtown Gettysburg. Located at 20 Lincoln Square, proper within the coronary heart of downtown Gettysburg (5 minutes from the Battlefield), The Pub & Restaurant is a Gettysburg basic that gives a really intensive menu that ought to hold the entire household glad.
After lunch, take a while to walk by downtown Gettysburg and do some procuring. Be certain to cease and take your image with Abraham Lincoln proper within the sq..
Visit the Shriver House Museum
In the morning, you’ll have realized quite a bit in regards to the Battle of Gettysburg, however a go to to the Shriver House Museum will present you what it was like for the civilians on the town. From guides in interval gown you’ll find out how Mrs. Shriver left their dwelling and saloon and took her household out to the household farm into the center of the battle.
When the household returned they discovered their home had been shot up, become a hospital, and utilized by Confederate sharpshooters in the course of the battle. The museum is positioned between downtown and the customer’s heart at 309 Baltimore Street. Tours run each half hour and take roughly one hour.
Dinner on the Dobbin House Tavern
When you might be prepared for dinner, an incredible historic choices is the Dobbin House. There are two eating choices on the Dobbin House; the downstairs Springhouse Tavern for informal eating and the upstairs eating rooms for tremendous eating in a interval environment.
We opted for the interval eating upstairs and I used to be so glad to see their kids’s menu had choices in addition to the everyday rooster fingers and french fries. I had the rooster and shrimp dish (scrumptious) and my daughter selected strip steak (from a child’s menu that supplied Pasta, Baked Chicken, Baked Shrimp, Filet Mignon and Strip Steak.) If you go to you must also take a look at their museum upstairs that reveals how the Dobbin House was a cease on the Underground Railroad.
Dobbin House Tavern is positioned at 89 Steinwehr Ave, Gettysburg, PA 17325.
Take a Ghost Tour
Apparently professionals suppose there may be a variety of paranormal exercise in Gettysburg, which is conceivable with what has occurred there. If you have an interest in exploring the paranormal, there are a selection of ghost excursions out there in Gettysburg. I’ve a daughter that’s simply spooked so we didn’t reap the benefits of these excursions.
Day Two
Tour the Gettysburg Battlefield
There are some ways to tour the Battlefield, together with bike excursions, horseback excursions, bus excursions, audio self-driving excursions, and even segway excursions! But the way in which I’d suggest to your first go to to Gettysburg with youngsters could be with an official Battlefield Guide. If you go this route, make your reservations at the least 3 days upfront by calling 877-874-2478.
Our guided tour of Gettysburg National Military Park was extremely informative and shifting. I might extremely suggest reserving a registered information. Renae MacLachlan, our Licensed Battlefield Guide, actually introduced historical past to life for us with graphic descriptions of the sounds and smells of the Battle of Gettysburg to seize our consideration, as a result of solely by making use of our creativeness to all of our senses may we start to fathom the size of this devastating battle.
“During the Battle the bullets were flying so fast and thick it sounded like thousands of hornet nests, yet after the battle no birds could be found, they were all scared away,” defined Renae. “People lay dying for days as they only saved those worth saving, not burying the last person until April of the following year — the stench could be smelled as far away as Harrisburg.”
“The sulphur from gunpowder burnt the inside of soldier’s and local’s noses and affected their sense of smell for up to five years after the battle.” Renae didn’t simply inform us in regards to the battle logistics, she took us again to that day and helped us think about what it was prefer to be a soldier and a civilian in the course of the Battle of Gettysburg.
I requested Renae what it took to turn into a Licensed Battlefield Guide and he or she gave me a glimpse into the hassle it takes to realize this place. It isn’t only for historical past buffs. In addition to studying and finding out a stack of books, candidates are screened to see how they work together with guests, together with households.
They must know the way to have interaction the know-it-all historical past buff whereas nonetheless making it attention-grabbing for his or her teenage youngsters, and the way to hold the eye of school-aged kids by making the historic sights accessible to all ages and pursuits. Not solely that, she must know the situation of all 1,320 monuments and memorials to assist guests which can be searching for sure states or ancestors.
That’s practically 6,000 acres of land to cowl in simply two and half hours in a method that’s significant, partaking and academic. Not a straightforward job, however they do it they usually do it exceptionally nicely as a result of they aren’t simply guides, they’re storytellers.
The story begins with the strategy of Lee’s military, pondering they’d encounter just some Union troopers and stunned by the scale and power of the drive they encountered. We actually noticed the benefit that the excessive floor afforded Union General Meade, as we launched into a path following the three-day battle step-by-step.
Suddenly the monuments started to make sense as we began to establish which belonged to which military based mostly on the situation and the path they have been dealing with (matching the place of the suitable military and regiment.) We realized how regiments custom-made their monuments with symbols like a Celtic cross or their canine mascot. Renae additionally described the way to establish which of the 410 cannons have been unique versus reproductions.
With Renae driving our automobile, we have been in a position to deal with all the data she was relaying, whereas feeling free to go searching and picture the armies marching throughout the fields. And although I wasn’t driving, we have been nonetheless in a position to cease and discover any of the areas we thought regarded attention-grabbing, together with climbing as much as the highest of Little Round Top, scrambling across the rocks at Devil’s Den, and taking within the view from the highest of the Pennsylvania Memorial.
In case you haven’t surmised it already, I couldn’t have been extra impressed with our go to to Gettysburg with a Licensed Battlefield Guide.
Lunch at One Lincoln
After all that battle discuss, you’re going to must decompress a bit within the afternoon. Start with lunch at One Lincoln within the Gettysburg Hotel.
Visit the The David Wills House
If you could have power for a bit of extra historical past, after lunch you’ll be able to cease by the David Wills House, the place Lincoln stayed the evening earlier than his well-known Gettysburg Address, at 8 Lincoln Square.
Take a Drive out into the Country
Next, it’s time to go to a few of the farms, markets and wineries alongside the Gettysburg Wine and Fruit Trail. There are many locations to pattern native wine and ciders. One of my favorites is Hauser Estate Winery.
In early October, households may even love collaborating within the National Apple Festival, which has been celebrated in Gettysburg for over 50 years! Here you will discover arts and crafts distributors; vintage and basic vehicles; hayrides; a petting zoo; pony rides; pie baking and consuming contest; scarecrow constructing; and tractor sq. dancing.
On weekends in September and October, households can benefit from the corn maze, hayrides, petting zoo, pumpkin choosing, zipline and different actions at Fields of Adventure.
Explore Mr. Ed’s Elephant Museum & Candy Shop
One of one of the best stops for those who love quirky points of interest is at Mr. Ed’s Elephant Museum and sweet store. Where else can you discover 12,000 elephants however in Gettysburg? Once you might be accomplished searching by his intensive show, you’ll be able to have enjoyable procuring on the over 700 kinds of candies and fudge.
Dinner at The Garryowen Irish Pub
There are loads of locations on the town to have dinner however if you’re in an Irish temper (or notably like bacon and wish to attempt their Tuesday Bakon Nights), the Garryowen at 126 Chambersburg St. is an genuine pub with Irish fare and music.
If you Have More Time in Gettysburg
If you could have greater than three days, there are extra enjoyable issues to do in Gettysburg together with:
Land of Little Horses
The Land of Little Horses is a cute interactive animal park. Open April by October, the Land of Little Horses has a big herd of miniature horses, in addition to different farmyard animals. Visitors can meet the animals, see day by day performances, and even play within the reproduction western city.
Carlisle Sports Emporium
This mega leisure advanced has over 75,000 sq. ft. of indoor and outside enjoyable for all ages with three go-kart tracks, two 18-hole themed miniature golf programs, a 2-story lasertron laser tag enviornment, an arcade, an indoor mountaineering wall, curler skating and café.
Liberty Mountain
If you might be visiting within the winter, close by Liberty Mountain affords snowboarding, snowboarding and tubing for the entire household.
Eisenhower National Historic Site
Dwight Eisenhower was stationed close to Gettysburg in World War I and when he needed a spot to quiet down, he returned and acquired a farm very near the Battlefield. After changing into President, Eisenhower hosted many well-known friends right here together with Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, President Charles de Gaulle of France, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain, and Gov. Ronald Reagan of California.
Go Biking
Healthy Adams Bicycle/Pedestrian (HABPI) affords quite a lot of bike experience choices on the town, on the battlefield and all through the county.
Horseback Riding
National Riding Stables permit you to see the battlefield from a unique perspective by using the precise trails the place affords rode and infantry marched in the course of the nice battle.
Food Tours
I like exploring a brand new place by my stomach and meals excursions are a good way to do that. There’s no higher technique to see the city you’re visiting than to eat your method by it. With Savor Gettysburg Food Tours you’ll be able to discover the historic downtown space and style your method by historical past.
Steam into History
Ride a duplicate of the steam engine that introduced Lincoln to his now well-known Gettysburg Address on the Steam into History prepare. Along the way in which, you’ll hear in regards to the cities and villages he handed alongside the way in which and the skirmish at Hanover Junction previous to the Battle of Gettysburg.
Before you Visit Gettysburg with Kids
Note: This put up might include affiliate hyperlinks. If you click on a hyperlink and make a purchase order, I could obtain a small fee. All opinions are my very own.
While you’ll be able to actually go to Gettysburg with out having first studied the Civil War, a bit of background is useful. Since youngsters normally don’t examine Gettysburg and the Civil War till eighth grade, studying up on slavery, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, Gettysburg, and the Gettysburg Address is an efficient technique to create some context.
Recommended studying for youthful youngsters contains:
Older Kids may additionally take pleasure in:
Find a Place to Stay in Gettysburg
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