Swimming

Swimming is an amazing exercise that helps to burn calories, works out all your core muscles, and provides excellent cardio workout. 

But unless you're a multi-millionaire it can be challenging to find a pool in the city. Luckily Philadelphia has one of the great public pool systems in the nation. If you don't mind the happy kids, the old-timers, and the sometimes questionable water you can really enjoy a good outdoor swim in almost every neighborhood of Philadelphia. 

Where to find them:

The City of Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation (not to be confuseded with Pawnee Indiana’s Parks and Rec, great show!) is a great place to start looking for a pool. The website provides a complete list of every public pool in the city along with addresses and phone numbers. The phone numbers are important since due to budget cuts, thunderstorms, and, um, “children’s accidents”, all pools might not be open at all times. It’s safest to call ahead to make sure your pool will be open when you get there.

The complete list can be found here.

The best pool:

This might just be personal preference but my favorite pool in the city is called Carousel House. It’s special for being one of the few indoor pools administered by the city. Besides its wonderful name, Carousel house also has that beautiful indoor pool smell. Perhaps it was growing up on a swim team but the dank and damp smell of chlorine in an enclosed space really gets me ready to hop in a pool. I’m not kidding either, and we all know that smell. Even better, with so many people rather swimming outdoors in the heat, Carousel House is almost always empty except when it rains. For exercise though, an empty pool is absolutely perfect. Be sure to call ahead though or pick up a schedule since there are often swim meets and competitions occurring that close the pool down to public use. Also, bring a pair of flip-flops, it’s usually clean but public showers can get, eh, funky is the word I guess. Or just disgusting.

Happy swimming!