American Airlines changed our flights and we now have a stopover in Philadelphia - coming from the UK. Arriving 1.40pm not leaving until 8.10am. Husband and I never been. Any suggestions?
p.s this is not until October!! so not sure of the weather.
weather will be lovely. One of the best months of the year. Worst thing that could happen is rain, but I imagine you can handle that 
Depends on your interests; the art museum is very nice; the Franklin Institute if you like science type stuff. Of course lots of US history with Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. I also highly recommend the National Constitution Center, which I found to be very moving, but not sure if it resonates quite as much with a non-American (as I’m assuming, perhaps incorrectly, you are)
Reading Terminal Market
For fine art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and/or the Barnes Collection
https://www.philamuseum.org/ building is home to the “Rocky steps” and statue as well.
https://www.barnesfoundation.org/
A walking tour of some of Philly’s extensive murals: https://www.muralarts.org/tours/
Book reservations for dinner at Zahav two months in advance. http://www.zahavrestaurant.com/
Explore the Italian market.
October is a beautiful time to visit Philly. All of the suggestions above are great.
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology & Anthropology is also really cool. It’s an easy walk if you take train from airport to 30th street station, and University City will be humming that time of year.
If you are more of a shopper, head to Rittenhouse Square to see what’s going on. Have lunch and explore shops along Walnut Street and surrounding area.
I’m not an advocate of burying oneself in a museum if you have just a few hours to visit an interesting city. Agree with Reading Terminal Market and Independence Hall. The Schuykill River path is nice, too. Great Italian good abounds. Have a cheesesteak.
One or more of these can be seen in a short visit:
The Barnes Foundation (for art)
The Mutter Museum (medical oddities for aspiring pre-meds)
Eastern State Penitentiary (Halloween show in October)
National Constitution Center
National Museum of American Jewish History
(and the usual - Independence Hall, Liberty Bell)
Get ice cream at Franklin Fountain
“Have a cheesesteak.”
Actually, I’d skip the cheesesteak and have Philly’s best sandwich - roast pork with provolone and broccoli rabe from DiNic’s or John’s.
I am a transplant in the Philly area and have many times given whirlwind tours of Philly. If you arrive at 1:40pm the quickest you can expect to be downtown is most likely 3:30pm, so I’d stick with an outdoors itinerary. You can take public transport from the Airport to downtown. I’ve never done it, but I know that there is a line that runs between the Airport and downtown.
The Independence hall area can easily consume a couple hours walking outside, if you want to go inside the hall (which is always great and always different), you will need to reserve your free tickets (for a reservation fee that is pretty small) online. You can walk up to see the grave of Benjamin Franklin and his wife. They charge admission for the graveyard (I’ve paid it a couple times because my dad is a history buff and there are something like 6 signers of the Declaration of Independence in the cemetery), but if you are just walking by you can see the Franklin Graves from outside the fence. In fact, Ben’s is right up against the fence in the corner and you really can’t miss it. It is the one with all the coins on it.
Reading Terminal Market closes at 6pm, so if you want to see it (a big indoor food market, etc.) you need to leave yourself some time, but again not sure you’ll be able to pull it off.
The good news is that the Philly area is like Washington DC, but to a smaller extent. You can see much of the history stuff from the outside.
Another option, is to go Penn’s Landing and walk around. Do a little research before you go and you might see a free concert.
Overall, have a plan. There are some “hot spots” where you might not want to wander into. For the most part Philly is safe downtown, but…
Philly is my hometown and we often take overnight guests on half-day overview tours. If you want to get a flavor of the city, I agree with @MomofWildChild and @BrianBoiler to skip the museums and tour the outside spots instead. When we show people around, we always include the Art Museum area (outside.) Check out the Rocky statue, climb the steps and admire the view of the Parkway and the city from the top, then head around to the backside, down the hill and out to the patio behind the Water Works, for a good view of the Schuylkill River and Boathouse Row. From there you can walk the Schuylkill trail along the river towards 30th street station. (or in reverse, you can take a train from the airport to 30th St station and then do the 5 minute walk to the Art Museum.) For the short amount of time you have (only a few hours of daylight), this will be the loveliest spot to visit and give you the most bang for your buck (free!). My 2nd recommendation would be to spend some time in Independence Mall/Old City area, for the historic perspective. Your best bet to see the most may be to do a guided bus tour. Check out visitphilly.com for more info.
If you ARE interested in seeing Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, I highly recommend watching the movie National Treasure beforehand. We did this with my kids when they were little and they said it was “better than Disney”. It is not a “children’s “ movie, either, just kid-friendly, historical-nerdy thriller.
Think the prettiest section of Philadelphia is Society Hill. It borders a lot of the historical sites and would be a terrific choice for an al fresco lunch and a stroll. Cobblestone steets, historic townhouses and some good restaurant choices. Very pretty and safe area.
+1 on the cheesesteak.
+2 for cheesesteak and be sure to grab a hot pretzel with mustard from a street vendor!
Independence Hall. Walk around that whole park as well, lots to see.
Liberty Bell, as a symbol of our nation, is worth a look, at least from the street but maybe not standing on line.
Our family loved the Constitution museum. Totally worth it!
The US Mint is cool— it is where coins are made, and you can see the real coins being made— and the Jewish museum is very interesting, too.
But if you have only limited hours on a stopover, I would say either Independence Hall and its environs or the Constitution Center. Those are so special to United States history and identity. (Unless you feel especially drawn to one of the other attractions.)
Sign up for whatever you can in advance online. I believe some of these tickets can be reserved in advance, so avoid disappointment and shorten your time waiting on lines by booking early.
I go from the airport into town a lot and it doesn’t take from 1:40 to 3:30! Grab an uber or the train and it’s a quick trip. I would say 2:30 or 2:45 especially since they won’t have to wait for luggage.
Museums have character. They are not all the same, and they are not fungible. And that’s especially true of the Barnes, which is pretty much unlike any other art museum I have ever seen. Independence Hall is inspiring and all that, but it’s just a smallish colonial-era brick building where some incredibly important things happened, none of them having much to do with its architecture. (Besides it’s being a big room roughly equidistant from Richmond and Boston.) If I were going to recommend one thing to do in Philadelphia – to someone who cares about fine art – I would send them to the Barnes.
Reading Terminal is fun if you like markets (I do). You can get roast pork with rabe and provolone there, or good quality cheesesteaks, and amazing donuts (and any other kind of food, pretty much). Walking tours of Old City/Society Hill are fun, but won’t impress anyone coming from London. The Schuylkill River walk, especially around the Art Museum, is lovely if the weather is nice.
Personally, I don’t like the Constitution Center. It’s a lot of building, and not a lot of content. Most of the content is found at learning stations that are essentially web browsers stuck on one site.
If you want a high-end dinner, Zahav is great, but so would be Vernick (hard to describe, just really excellent farm-to-table), Vedge (amazing haute vegan), Vetri (high-end Italian, with the city’s best cook back in the kitchen personally after selling the empire he built), Le Virtu (Abruzzian).
I don’t think you will have any difficulty filling the afternoon and evening hours…but…where do you plan to sleep? So that you will be AT that airport early enough for your flight the next morning? I’d square that away too!
Your travel isn’t for a few months…American Airlines could change your flight times again between now and then.
You’re on cc. Tour Swarthmore and/or Penn.
Sorry- I didn’t realize it was an overnight stay so I guess you will collect luggage (or maybe not). The big thing is maybe the Phillies will still be playing!
A stop in a pop up beer garden sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society is always nice.
You’ll be up against tight timelines to do many of the things recommended here. Independence Hall closes at 5 pm that time of year and requires timed entry tickets, which can be purchased in advance online. The Barnes is closed on Tuesday and closes at 5 on other days… The Philadelphia Museum of Art is closed on Monday and closes at 5 on other days, except Wednesday and Friday when it’s open until 8:45. By the time you clear Customs and Immigration and get yourself into center city, it’s going to leave time to visit at most one of these places—and probably not enough time to do the PMA justice, unless you’re there on a Wednesday or Friday. FWIW, it’s only about a 20 minute trip by SEPTA rail into center city with trains every half hour, but between travel time and time spent waiting for a train, you could be pushing 50 minutes after you’ve cleared customs and gotten yourself to the train station, though these are very close to the terminals, with a stop at each terminal. And then you’ll still need to walk or take a taxi, Uber, or public transportation to your exact destination. A taxi or Uber directly from the airport might be a better bet.
I’d start by asking yourself where you want to have dinner, and where do you want to sleep. There are some very nice restaurants around Rittenhouse Square, a mostly high-end residential area at the southwestern edge of center city. The square itself is a lovely little park, one of the original public squares laid out by William Penn in his original plan for his “greene countrie towne,” and the surrounding streets are a lovely place to walk, complete with coffee shops, watering holes, and interesting shops and boutiques. Many of the city’s top fine dining establishments are there, but also some less expensive places depending on your interest. Personally I’d recommend Italian, as Philadelphia is especially noted for its Italian heritage, but that’s just me. Society Hill and Old City are also interesting and quite safe areas to walk, with a range of dining options. Philadelphia is perhaps most famous for its cheese steaks, a decidedly more low-brow offering. The best of these are in South Philly, not easily accessible from center city—though you can find decent ones at Reading Terminal Market. I agree with the poster who said a roast pork with provolone and broccoli rabe is superior to a cheese steak, and perhaps equally loved by Philadelphians but less well-known to tourists. The best are at John’s Roast Pork in South Philly (closed Sunday and Monday, open until 7 on other days), which also makes some of the best cheese steaks—better, IMO, than the more famous Pat’s and Geno’s, both crawling with tourists.
Once you know where you want to have dinner and where you want to spend the night, you can build in an additional late afternoon or after dinner activity, but don’t expect to do too much in the limited time you’ll have.