Outlander Sites in Philadelphia

Fans of Outlander, Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling eight-book series now also a hit TV show on Starz, can experience the story’s most famed locations and inspirations in Philadelphia.

The series focuses on a World War II British army nurse, Claire, who travels through time to meet an 18^th-century Scottish Highlander, Jamie Fraser. Their story unfolds on the streets of historic Philadelphia.

The couple meets Dr. Benjamin Rush, Thomas Paine, Benedict Arnold, George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette, and Jamie serves under General Washington in the Continental Army.

An Echo in the Bone, the seventh book in the Outlander series, arrives in Philadelphia in 1777 when the city is in rebel hands. Notable sites in the book include Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and Elfreth’s Alley.

A house at 17 Chestnut St. is the center of much of the action in Written in My Own Heart’s Blood. The location was fictional, but provides an accurate sense of what the life was like in the 18^th-century Society Hill neighborhood. St. George’s United Methodist Church, located on North 4^th Street, was also the setting of a famous wedding in the series.

Beyond the historic district, characters in the books and show venture outside city limits to sites including Bartram’s Garden along the Schuylkill River, Cliveden House in Germantown, Valley Forge National Historical Park, The Dandelion restaurant and Mount Pleasant in Fairmont Park.