Our Day At The Annual Puerto Rican Parade In Philadelphia

I was provided with a complimentary pass to help facilitate this post, but all opinions are 100% my own.

A couple of weeks ago we packed our bags for an overnight stay in the city of brotherly love. Although we only live a couple of hours away, we have never taken a trip to Philadelphia to enjoy all that the city has to offer. I’ll be sharing in more detail all the places and fun activities we got to enjoy as a family, but today I wanted to share our experience at the Puerto Rican Parade in Philadelphia.

The Puerto Rican parade is an annual celebration that takes place on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to celebrate the Puerto Rican culture. In case you didn’t know I’m half Puerto Rican, so I was thrilled to experience the parade during our stay. My mother is a native of Guayama, Puerto Rico which is on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. When I was 5 years old we moved back to the island and lived there until it was time for me to start middle school. I remember spending my weekends playing outdoors, going to the beach regularly and eating mangoes from our own tree. I truly miss those days!

The day of the parade we were blessed with the perfect weather. We made our way to the parade via a bus owned by The Big Bus Company. While on the bus we got a small tour of some of Philadelphia’s landmarks.

Once we arrived at the Parkway, I could tell from the hustle and bustle that the parade was ready to get going. The sidewalks were starting to get packed with spectators and those that were participating in the parade were lining up the streets. I took advantage and shot some photos of the beautiful sculptures on Parkway. Philadelphia is full of history and I was in awe during our entire trip with how beautiful the city is. The sculpture below is the Civil War Soldiers & Sailors Monument.

I remember participating in traditional dances during school events in Puerto Rico. So when I saw young girls wearing some of the traditional Puerto Rican dresses I wore as a child, it brought back many childhood memories.

There were a lot of traditional dance performances at the parade. The kids were my favorite!

This group treated us to a Zumba performance.

The people on this float were serenading us with traditional music from the island.

I was able to grab a quick video of them performing for your enjoyment:

The perfect ending to our trip was traditional helado de coco (natural coconut ice cream). It was the perfect treat that took me back to my days on the island which is what the Puerto Rican parade was all about.