Travel for Pennies

Travelers are often history buffs, even if they don’t start out that way. After a visit to a few places for the beaches and the parties, the rest of the place starts to look more interesting. How people happen to be living in one particular place is always an interesting conundrum, and that’s tied to the history of the area. There are so many histories in just one city that it’s impossible to know them all. Even the smallest town in the country has more stories in it than are possible to learn in a lifetime. So when we come to a city like Philadelphia, this reaches enormous proportions.

With all of the obvious historical connections to the founding of the country, there are plenty of chances to visit the important places in town where the major events took place. There are histories of other things as well, of course, including the histories of the ethnic communities that make up the city, and then there is also the arts. Philadelphia as a center of Vaudeville has been the subject of theatrical productions, and it’s also a running theme in the city.

With history, any current can become a running theme once one starts looking for it. But here, the connections are more obvious, since this was a natural stopping point for entertainers on their way to Manhattan. It’s as much true now as it was then. Back in the heyday of Vaudeville, however, there were plenty of other stories of intrigue and interest, including B.F. Keith ‘s own biography as a theatre mogul who cornered the market on Vaudeville theatres at one time. And for those who really long for an old-fashioned kind of luxury, Philadelphia hotels offer a timelessness that reflects the here and now as much as the time when modern comic geniuses were still working the boards.

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