Eight days, a dozen travel advisors and one unanimous verdict: the rest of New York State has been hiding in plain sight. Ivy Carruth joins a winterful wonderful trip in New York State to uncover it.
Into the woods
The snowshoes are harder to walk in than they look. This is the first thing I learn at Roscoe Mountain Club in New York State’s Sullivan Catskills, approximately four seconds after being handed a pair. The second thing I learn? It couldn’t matter less, because we’re moving through a fairy tale of a snow-blanketed forest, so quiet that all I hear is the crunch of powder and my own heavy breathing. Nobody’s in a hurry to be anywhere. New York City’s in the rear-view, two hours back.
The Catskills set the tone for our trip early with sweet s’mores and wood-fired saunas; the cold’s like that friend I’d never stopped to talk to properly. Now I don’t want to leave.
No one mentions Manhattan for the rest of the week.
Fingers in the landscape
From the Catskills, we move into the Finger Lakes – eleven glacial pools carved through central New York, each longer and more narrow than expected. The Haudenosaunee, the Indigenous people known as the Iroquois, believe the bodies of water were formed when the Great Spirit pressed his hands into the earth in blessing. Standing at the lip of Taughannock Falls in February, watching 66 metres of vertical frozen water defy gravity, it’s easy to believe something deliberate happened here. Our group escort, Rhonda Carges, points out that it’s taller than Niagara.
“I can’t believe we’re this close to New York City, it’s a completely different world here,” Maria DiGiacomo from Reach Global Marketing marvels. It’s the kind of remark that lands differently when it comes from someone who sells travel for a living. These aren’t civilians easily impressed by a waterfall.
A master sommelier and a speakeasy
The cutie-pie town of Geneva anchors the Finger Lakes section of our itinerary, sitting at the northern tip of Seneca Lake.
The wine is the headline – Chris Bates, one of only 291 Master Somms in the world lives here, and he is, as advertised, full of opinions and happy to share them. (The Riesling conversation alone is worth a stop.) Down the street, at Vinifera, a tasting room owned by the Mayor, ask to check out the Prohibition-era speak easy – they don’t advertise it. Liz, a travel advisor from Germany sums up the rhythm perfectly: “This town’s got Hallmark movie energy.” This is not an insult. Wine Enthusiast magazine named the Finger Lakes one of the Top 10 Wine Regions in the world in 2024; not an honour handed out willy-nilly.
Like other ‘burgs we’ll come across on this trip, this isn’t a ‘tourist town’; it’s a town for locals that welcomes visitors. There’s a difference. These places are built for the people who live in them. The kind of place, as someone notes, where you could leave your bag in your car and not worry. Not that you should. But you could.
State to plate
Dinner at Rose Tavern, inside The Lake House on Canandaigua, answers any questions about whether the food scene has caught up with the wine. Word on the street? Michelin’s noticed. Service is exceptional – they miss nothing, and after the meal is served, we all have to take a beat to just look at it. Photo-worthy? Yes. But not long for the plate? Also yes.
In town, the 132-year old Smith Opera House may be small, but she’s mighty. She’s been known to host a few bands you might have heard of, Bruce Springsteen among them, in a 1.400-seat venue that has no business being this charming in a town of this size.
“The vibe of this region is just so many places hidden right under your nose,” says Cathy of Linkd Tourism in Sydney. She’s not wrong.
Other stand out moments? The group debating the definition of a ‘home fry’ at pretty much every meal (potatoes are popular here). Nordic skiing becomes, unexpectedly, a highlight for everyone.
The town that laughs at itself
Jamestown follows, and with it the DesiLu Studios Museum and the National Comedy Centre (NCC) – both better than the lot of us expect. It was Golden Age actress Lucille Ball’s wish that her hometown celebrate comedians broadly, not just her own legacy. At the NCC, plan enough time to really interact with the exhibits – and for those of you with a ribald sense of humour, take the lift downstairs to The Blue Room.
The verdict
The trip closes through Chautauqua, Buffalo and Niagara – each making its own case and doing it well.
Somewhere on the bus, between stops, the conversation turns to what we’ll take home from this. The sentiment across the dozen of us, from four countries? Staying in the Big Apple and not exploring further afield is a rookie mistake. “NYC hogs all the spotlight,” someone quips, and it does, right? The rest of the state has, historically, let it do the talking.
This, the group agrees, is a new story worth telling.
Discover more New York State wonders here.
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Writer Ivy Carruth travelled as a guest of I LOVE NY.
Read Ivy’s review of the iconic TWA Hotel at New York’s JFK here.
This article is brought to you by I Love New York.
