Pretty URL's are always nice and great in many cases. This is how you rewrite your URL's to remove / strip off php extension

.htaccess

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    # remove trailing slash
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s(.+?)/+[?\s]
    RewriteRule ^(.+?)/$ /$1 [R=301,L]

    # To externally redirect /dir/file.php to /dir/file
    RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s/+(.+?)\.php[\s?] [NC]
    RewriteRule ^ /%1 [R=301,L,NE]

    # To internally forward /dir/file to /dir/file.php
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1.php -f
    RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ /$1.php [L]
</IfModule>