Natural Attractions
- Ausable Chasm: ★ Ausable Chasm – a large gorge carved out by the Ausable River
- Cazenovia: ★ Chittenango Falls State Park – The park’s main feature is the 167-ft waterfall that tumbles down ancient bedrock into a peaceful creek. A series of walking paths let you view the falls from multiple angles. Beautiful foliage surrounds the cascade, and a stepped pathway leads you to a footbridge near the base.
- Garrison – Constitution Marsh Audubon Center and Sanctuary – the trail will take you from the parking lot all the way out to a 700-foot long boardwalk that takes you out amongst the tidal marsh. An amazing place to embrace the sights of the Hudson Highlands and to watch for wildlife
- Ithaca: Robert H. Treman State Park – nine miles of hiking trails and 12 separate waterfalls. Lower Falls is a large swimming hole complete with a lifeguard, diving board, and a cascading waterfall to set the backdrop.
- Lake Placid: Situated high in the Adirondacks, Lake Placid is a tranquil and beautiful community, surrounded by alpine views. Main Street is home to dozens of mom-and-pop shops selling everything from antiques to sporting goods.
- Mt Morris: ★ Letchworth State Park – one of the most spectacular canyons in the Eastern United States. Letchworth follows the Genesee River as it flows through a deep gorge and forms 3 majestic waterfalls. Verdant forests engulf the rugged cliffs that reach heights of more than 550 ft.- consider a hot air balloon ride
- New Paltz: Lemon Squeeze Hike – –
- Niagara Falls:
- ★ Niagara Falls State Park
- Devil’s Hole State Park
- Palenville: ★ Kaaterskill Falls – Greene County – One of New York’s tallest waterfalls,
- Pittsford: ★ Tinker Nature Park – decorated in fairy homes and doors that no one knows who put here!
- Saratoga Springs: Island Spouter
- Thousand Island: ★ Thousand Islands – Take a boat tour to see mansions The Thousand Islands archipelago consists of around 1,800 islands that create a border between the United States and Canada. Cruising along the forested islands reveals images of opulent mansions, summer cottages, and nautical history.
- Trumansburg: ★ Taughannock Falls State Park – tallest single-plunge waterfall east of the Rockies at 215 feet
- Watkins Glen: ★ Watkins Glen State Park – containing 18 waterfalls, is situated at the southernmost tip of Seneca Lake
- Appalachian National Scenic Trail (Georgia to Maine)
- Long Island: Fire Island National Seashore
- Gateway National Recreation Area (NY, NJ) – Sandy Hook in New Jersey to Breezy Point in New York City, the park is both the gateway from the ocean into New York Harbor, and offers green spaces and beaches alongside historic structures and cultural landscapes.Floyd Bennett Field was NYC’s first municipal airport.
- The Sandy Hook Lighthouse, Visitor Center, History House and Post Musem
- Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River
National Parks and Monuments
- Auburn: Harriet Tubman National Historical Park – was a center for progressive thought, abolition, and women’s suffrage where Tubman continued to fight for human rights and dignity until she died in 1913.
- Buffalo: Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site – preserves the Ansley Wilcox House, at 641 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, New York. Here, after the assassination of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office as President of the United States on September 14, 1901.
- Catskill: Thomas Cole National Historic Site – includes the home and the studio of painter Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of American painting.
- ★ Hyde Park: [RA]
- Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site – home of Eleanor Roosevelt
- Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site – birthplace, lifelong home, and burial place of the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site – a historic house museum
- Kinderhook: Martin Van Buren National Historic Site – Martin Van Buren was central to the creation of America’s political parties, and to the largest crisis of his time, slavery.
- Mt Vernon: Saint Paul’s Church National Historic Site – one of New York’s oldest parishes and was used as a military hospital after the American Revolutionary War Battle of Pell’s Point in 1776.
- Oyster Bay: Sagamore Hill National Historic Site – home of the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, from 1885 until his death in 1919.
- New York City
- African Burial Ground National Monument – the oldest and largest known excavated burial ground in North America for both free and enslaved Africans.
- Castle Clinton National Monument – a circular sandstone fort located in Battery Park
- Ellis Island (Part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument)
- Federal Hall National Memorial
- General Grant National Memorial
- Governors Island National Monument
- Hamilton Grange National Memorial – preserves the relocated home of U.S. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
- Statue of Liberty National Monument
- Stonewall National Monument – The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGBTQ civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.
- Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site – Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, lived at this site from his birth on October 27, 1858 until he was 14 years old
- Rome: ★ Fort Stanwix National Monument –
- Seneca Falls – ★ Women’s Rights National Historical Park – tells the story of the first Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, NY on July 19-20,1848. It is a story of struggles for civil rights, human rights, and equality, global struggles that continue today. The efforts of women’s rights leaders, abolitionists, and other 19th century reformers remind us that all people must be accepted as equals.
- Stillwater: ★ Saratoga National Historical Park – preserves the site of the Battles of Saratoga.
- Staten Island: Fort Wadsworth is one of the oldest military installations in the nation. Fort Wadsworth Vistor Center, the Fort Wadsworth Museum, and the Mont Sec House.
Other Attractions
Buffalo
- Nash House House
- Allentown Historic District
- Darwin D. Martin House Complex – Frank Llloyd Wright
Rochester: George Eastman House and the International Museum of Photography and Film – 50-room Mansion
★ West Point
- United States Military Academy Visitors Center
- West Point Museum
- Frederic V. Malek West Point Visitors Center
- Fort Putman
Offbeat Landmarks and Oddities
Auriesville: ★ Shrine of the North American Martyrs [RA] – This hilltop shrine is dedicated to three of America’s canonized martyrs, who “shed their blood for Christ” on or around this spot in the 1640s.
Bethel: ★ Hippie Muffler Man [RA] – The “Hippie” Muffler Man grooves near that epicenter of feel-good Flower Power — Woodstock.
Blue Mountain Lake: Cabin of a Hermit [RA] – For more than 30 years, Noah John Rondeau lived alone in this 8×12-foot cabin in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. Many other exhibits about the region and history.
Boiceville: ★ Steve Heller’s Auto Art Studio [RA] – A man who, among other projects, builds spaceships out of cars. Sculptures next to the road.
Buffalo:
- Tesla Clutches Golden Lightning Bolt [RA] – Unveiled in September 2020, sculpted by Mark DeGraffenried, the bronze statue stands in tiny Nikola Tesla Park — the only such named park in America — across the street from where Tesla was the guest of honor at the “Power Banquet” of 1897.
- Buffalo History Museum, The Gun That Killed President McKinley [RA] – Crazed assassin Leon Czolgosz used a .32 caliber revolver hidden under a handkerchief to shoot President William McKinley at point blank range. The gun is displayed in the Buffalo History Museum, as is the ball and chain Czolgosz wore at his trial.
- Forest Lawn Cemetery, Deathbed Scene in Marble [RA] – Mr. and Mrs. Blocher were rich and so distraught over the death of their adult son that they built him a fancy tomb, with marble statues of all three, plus an angel, and sealed it within a gazebo behind glass.
- Shark Girl [RA] – Shark Girl sits at the left end of that footbridge, an Alice in Wonderland figure with the head of a great white shark.
- Karma: Outside Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Tower of Stacked Humans [RA] – Do Ho Suh’s “Karma” is a tower of stacked humans, each crouching on the shoulders of the one below, extending skyward into apparent infinity. Bizarre and impressive. 23 feet tall.
Carmel: ★ Largest Indoor Buddha in the Western Hemisphere [RA] – 37 feet tall. In the Great Buddha Hall at the Chuang Yen Monastery. The Great Buddha is surrounded by 10,000 tiny Buddhas and sits in a giant lotus flower.
Celoron: Lindsey Place, Scary Lucy, Lovelly Lucy [RA] – The sculpture was of Lucy as she’d looked in a 1952 episode of her television series, I Love Lucy, making a funny face after drinking an alcoholic concoction named Vitameatavegamin.
Cherry Valley: The Tepee [RA] – 50-foot tall metal cone of the TePee, gift shop, They still sell an assortment of typical tourist items, including “Tepee Taffy.”
Chester: Dumpster Divers [RA] – Humorous sculpture in junk steel of assorted industrious metal workers bursting from a trash dumpster. 2008 artwork by Zac Shavrick.
Cobleskill: Secret Caverns [RA] – commercial caverns, arch-rival to subterranean neighbor Howe Caverns,
Cooperstown: Farmer’s Museum – Cardiff Giant [RA] – a large, stone statue that was buried in the ground to fool people that it was a petrified giant from Genesis.
Cortland: ★ SUNY Cortland Campus, Smoke-Breathing Dragon [RA] – a 26-foot-long dragon was unveiled outside the university’s football/soccer stadium
East Bethany: ★ Big Metal Dragon [RA] – Built of steel and copper over a period of a dozen years by Tom Stringham. Stands outside the rural workshop of a company, Emerald Models, that makes sculpture design prototypes.
East Durham: ★ Blackthorne Resort, Giant Steampunk Robot [RA] – 17 feet tall, stands in an open-air outdoor shed, built by Thomas Willeford for the 2014 Steampunk World’s Fair.
Eden: ★ Original American Kazoo Company [RA] – Tour the factory where kazoos are made, right here in the U.S.A. On the roof you should spot the World’s Largest Metal Kazoo.
Elizabethtown: Adirondack History Center Museum, Skull and Noose of Last Man Hanged in Essex County [RA] – Henry Debosnys shot and stabbed his bride — they had been married only a few weeks — while riding in a buggy. He was hanged in 1883.
Elmsford: Muffler Man – Paul Bunyan [RA] – One-armed fiberglass Paul Bunyan outside a gas station.
Flanders: ★ The Big Duck [RA] – tourist center, 30 feet long, 20 feet high, and 18 feet wide.
Garden City: Cradle of Aviation Museum [RA] – Long Island touts a number of lighter-than-air and powered flight firsts, hence the museum’s claim to fame name. Eight galleries of historic aircraft and models include the never-used Lunar Module from Apollo 18, and an American knock-off of the Nazi V-1 Buzz Bomb.
Highland Falls: ★ West Point Museum: War Booty [RA]
Hoosick: ★ Big Moose Country Store [RA] – Souvenir store features lots of outdoor fiberglass statues — cows, moose, a gorilla — as well as old cars, a crashed airplane, and a cartoon moose photo-op.
Howes Cave:
- Howe Caverns [RA] – commercial cavern
- S.C. Billboard: You’ll Flip [RA] – An upside-down gag billboard, promoting Secret Caverns as “the anti-gravity cavity.” Cool Caveman Dude has a pair of large bat wings as he dives upward into the pool at the base of Secret Caverns 100 Ft. Underground Waterfall.
Irondequoit: Oldest Mini-Golf in the USA [RA] – Built in 1930; a sign declares its age primacy. At least two other U.S. mini-golfs also make this claim. Whispering Pines preserves its original layout.
Irving:
- ★ Big Chief: Smoke Shop Muffler Man [RA] & Big Chief: Interstate Muffler Man [RA] – The two Chiefs are now virtually identical, and both are frozen in beer-less, Nazi-less, palm-up salutes. The chief is at the entrance to the Big Indian Smoke Shop, home of the World’s Largest Cigar Humidor.
Jamestown:
- ★ Lucy Desi Museum and Desilu Studios [RA] – preserve the memory of Jamestown’s favorite daughter, Lucille Ball, and her nutty Cuban first husband, Desi Arnaz (aka Ricky Ricardo).
- National Comedy Center [RA] – The Center is part museum, part hall of fame, and part high-tech comedy club.
Kerhonkson: Gnome Chomsky: World’s Third Largest Garden Gnome [RA]
Lake George:
- House of Frankenstein Wax Museum [RA] –
- World’s Fair Muffler Man [RA] – A fiberglass Paul Bunyan stands at Around the World Golf, a miniature golf attraction along the southern shore of Lake George. He brandishes a double-edged ax while visitors putt between his legs. A sign notes:”Paul Bunyan obtained from New York World’s Fair.” This is the third Muffler Man we’ve noted to make this claim, and all three may be true.
Lake Vanare: Mountain Air Campground, Bunyan Muffler Man [RA] – missing arm and foot
Liverpool: Muffler Man [RA] – A standard Bunyan model fiberglass statue guards a Honda dealership empty-handed.
Lockport:★ Cave Tour and Underground Boat Ride [RA] – Billed as America’s Longest Underground Boat Ride (70 minutes). Tour the drippy tunnels dug under the city in the 1800s, 40 feet underground. You will get wet.
Lyndonville: Sneaker Tree: Multiple Shoe Trees [RA] – Four trees in one spot, filled with hundreds of shoes tossed by visitors. Started in the 1980s.
Massapequa: Big Chief Lewis [RA] – Protected behind barbed wire, he dwarfs his flanking life-size statues of a bison and a horse.
Menands: Albany Rural Cemetery, Grave of Chester A. Arthur [RA] – life-size bronze angel laying a palm frond atop Arthur’s black granite sarcophagus, to modern eyes it looks like the angel is casually tidying Arthur’s tomb with a Swiffer Duster.
Middleville:
- ★ The treasures mined here are “Herkimer diamonds” — really faceted quartz crystals with points at both ends, and this is supposedly one of the few places in the world where they can be found. A few bucks in the Herkimer Diamond Mines gift shop will rent you a crack hammer and buy you safety goggles.
Millbrook:★ Wing’s Castle [RA] – An artist couple built their own fantasy castle from 1971 to 1993. It now hosts tours, and a similarly-designed addition operates as a bed and breakfast.
Montauk: Big Tiki Photo-Op [RA] – Outside the Montauk Beach House motel. 1960s vintage, stylized Polynesian tiki figure is conveniently positioned for photo opportunities.
Mount McGregor: U.S. Grant’s Death House and “Last View” Marker [RA] – Former President Grant spent the last five weeks of his life in a hilltop cottage, racing against time to finish his memoirs before he died (he just made it). The cottage displays his Death Bed and Death Mask, and a short walk down a path leads to the “Last View” marker, an engraved block surrounded by a cage that marks the spot where Grant looked at the Hudson Valley for the last time, three days before he died.
Mountainville:★ Storm King Art Center, Giant Three-Legged Thing on Big Human Head [RA] – Storm King Art Center is a sprawling collection of over 120 large sculptures on a landscape of 500 acres overlooking the Hudson River. Many are abstract: cubes, tubes, triangles. There’s even a 2,778-foot-long zig-zag rock wall that isn’t a wall; it’s art. But the most puzzling artwork here is more figurative: what we call the Giant Three-Legged Thing Standing on a Big Human Head.
Newburgh: Motorcyclepedia [RA] – large motorcycle museum
Niagara Falls:
- Niagara Wax Museum of History [RA] –
- Tesla Statue: American Side [RA] – It’s on Goat Island, just upriver from Horseshoe Falls, and you get to it by walking through the entrance arch of the old Niagara Falls power plant that Nikola Tesla helped to build in 1895, the first big hydroelectric plant in the world. The Tesla statue on the Canadian side of the Falls is more flamboyant and visually satisfying, although the American statue deserves credit for being the first Tesla tribute in North America.
- Second Coming House of Prophet Isaiah[RA] – The house of Prophet Isaiah — he lives inside — is now a spectacular piece of spiritual eye candy, with thousands of bright-hued, hand-carved surfaces continually painted and repainted by its owner.
- Haunted House of Wax [RA]
North Pole: Santa’s Workshop [RA] – America’s oldest theme park
North River:★ Barton Garnet Mine [RA] – Tours leave on the hour and take about an hour. You drive down into the quarry behind the tour guides, who give a little history of the mine, and then you get to slosh water around looking for sparkles. You can take as many garnets out as you want for a dollar a pound, but they’re probably not going to be jewelry quality.
Old Forge:
- ★ Enchanted Forest Water Safari [RA] – opened in 1956 as a fairytale park. crazy fairytale buildings and characters
- Enchanted Forest Paul Bunyan [RA] – 19-foot-tall Bunyan statue has been a fixture at the Enchanted Forest theme park since 1956. Restored over the winter of 2019-2020,
Oneida: Cross Island Chapel, World’s Smallest Church [RA] – The church is built on wooden pilings and a low platform in the middle of a pond. It’s open to the public on request, and accessible only by boat.
Orchard Park:★ Chestnut Ridge Park, World Record Eternal Flame [RA] – A flame a few inches high from a natural gas seep flickers behind a forest waterfall, as it has since prehistoric times. Declared a “world record” for its longevity by Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. The eternal flame does go out on occasion; visitors are advised to bring lighters.
Ossining: Caputo Community Center, Sing Sing Prison Museum [RA]
Oyster Bay: Teddy Roosevelt Home and Museum [RA] – Sagamore Hill was Teddy Roosevelt’s home before, during, and after his presidency. Called the Summer White House during Teddy’s administration. Be sure to check out the elephant foot inkwell, and the sunken great room in the back of the house.
Oyster Bay: Teddy Roosevelt Home and Museum [RA] – Sagamore Hill was Teddy Roosevelt’s home before, during, and after his presidency. Called the Summer White House during Teddy’s administration. Be sure to check out the elephant foot inkwell, and the sunken great room in the back of the house.
Palmyra:★ The Hill Cumorah Visitors Center – Angel Was Here, Birthed Mormonism [RA] – The Visitors Center, Sacred Grove, Hill Cumorah, and Moroni statue are popular destinations for Mormon families,
Port Washington: Sandminers Monument [RA] – A nice tableau of three sand miners standing atop a mine shaft, watching a pair of disembodied hands pour sand in a pile forming New York City in miniature. Dedicated in 2011 to the miners who worked the local sandbanks that helped create 90 percent of NYC’s infrastructure concrete.
Prattsville: Pratt Rock [RA] – carvings in a cliff to honor a local businessman. The carvings — which include Zadock, his son, a horse, and a brawny arm holding a sledgehammer. (1843-1871)
Red Hook:
- Fork in the Road, Prozac Capsule [RA] – Giant sculptures created in jest by artist Stephen Schreiber. The fork stands in an appropriate spot. The Prozac is a retired septic tank.
- Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome[RA] – air shows
Riverhead: Muffler Man: Chief Running Fair [RA] – The statue of “Chief Running Fair” stands watch at the Riverhead Raceway. Superstorm Sandy snapped him in two in October 2012, but he was back on his feet by Christmas.
Rome: 10-Foot-Tall Neanderthal Soldier [RA] – During WWII someone sculpted a big half-Alley Oop caveman, half-American GI out of concrete. A unique pro-USA depiction of Americans as half-human beasts.
Romulus: Ghost Deer and Atom Bombs[RA] – The world’s largest known population of ghostly white deer live inside a Cold-War-era army depot, undisturbed since the late 1940s, sealed from the outside world by over 24 miles of barbed wire fence
Rosendale:★ Widow Jane Mine and Museum [RA] – A mine and museum about cement, in the former Cement Capital of the U.S. . It’s a short walk to the Widow Jane Mine, which is more like a large underground room.
Saratoga Springs: Saratoga Springs History Museum [RA] – its history museum has exhibits about gangsters, underwear, bizarre art, gambling, and murder.
Saugerties:★ Opus 40: Environmental Sculpture [RA] – It covers 6.5 acres, and all of its terraces, ramps, and steps — built from countless thousands of individually-shaped rocks — are stacked without mortar, a technique that Harvey learned while restoring ancient Mayan structures in Honduras. A 15-foot-high nine-ton monolith, completed in 1963, is its focal point.
Schoharie: S.C. Billboard: Got Cave? [RA] – another Secret Caverns billboard
Silver Creek: Dolly Dimples Waitress Statue [RA] – Big-headed statue with a cheery smile welcomes all to a local roadside candy/gift/weird stuff store.
Somers: Elephant Hotel, Old Bet the Elephant [RA] – an effigy of Old Bet, an elephant purchased by Somers farmer Hachaliah Bailey in 1806,
Southampton: Mr. Millenium – Giant Snowman [RA] – Mr. Millenium (sic) is well-clothed for a snowman (top hat, scarf, earmuffs, and mittens) and looks to be about 20 feet tall.
Stony Brook: Figurehead of Hercules [RA] – In 1820 the U.S.S. Ohio became the first ship to be launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and its figurehead was a massive, full-color carving of the head and shoulders of Hercules, draped in the skin of a lion he’d killed with his mighty hands. The ship was scrapped in 1884, but the figurehead was saved, passed from collector to collector over the years. Today it’s sheltered in an open-air pavilion next to the water, along with Ohio’s anchor and a whaleboat, supposedly the only surviving relic from a doomed 1870 expedition to the Arctic.
Stony Point: Muffler Man – Boy Scout Camp Mascot [RA] – A Paul Bunyan fiberglass giant, carrying a way-too-large double-bladed ax.
Ticonderoga: Star Trek Original Series Set Tour [RA]
Troy:
- ★ Hometown of Uncle Sam [RA] – Uncle Sam, mascot of the USA, was real. At least according to folks in upstate New York, who claim that a local 19th century meatpacker named Samuel Wilson was the guy.
- Uncle Sam’s Chamber Pot [RA[
Trumansburg: The Taughannock Giant [RA] – Exact outdoor replica of a hoax “petrified giant” dug up on a local farm in 1879 — a forgotten rival to the famous Cardiff Giant. Moved to this spot in July 2021.
Vail Mills: Wildlife Sports and Educational Museum, The Leather Guy [RA] – The statue is 24 feet tall and weighs 975 pounds
Waterloo: Scythe Tree[RA] – Tree where scythes were left by men going to war. The tree has grown around the scythe.
Watkins Glen:
- World’s Smallest Diner [RA] – Built in 2017 by Gerry Collins — 34 square feet and serves mostly hot dogs. It has a functioning kitchen and three stools. “World’s Smallest Diner” is above its front door.
- Winery Dinosaurs [RA] – More than a dozen life-size and lifelike dinosaurs populate the lawn at a Watkins Glen winery. Brought in for a Christmas display in late 2020, and still around.
Westfield: Lincoln Meets Grow-a-Beard Girl [RA] – Statues honoring 12-year-old Grace Bedell didn’t think so, and she wrote him on Oct. 15, 1860, urging the then-presidential-candidate to grow a beard because “all the ladies like whiskers.”
Westhampton:★ Musketeers and Castle [RA] – An Italian restaurant that looks like a castle, originally opened in 1928. The 12-foot-tall fencing Musketeer statues and castle date to the late 1800s, built by artist Theophilus Brower, who wanted a castle similar to one he’d seen in Seville, Spain.
Whitehall:
- ★ Chainsaw Bigfoot, Sasquatch Sightings Area [RA] – Chainsaw carved from a tree stump, which makes this a somewhat skinny Bigfoot. Resembles a sad-faced, very hairy man with claws. Whitehall has been a hotbed of Sasquatch sightings since 1976, and passed a law in 2004 making it a crime to shoot at Bigfoot.
- Golfing Bigfoot [RA] – A seven-foot-tall Bigfoot well-made of steel wire stands at the first hole of a golf course, putter in hand. The course owner saw a Sasquatch on this spot in 1975.
Williamsville:★ Patriots and Heroes Park [RA] – Patriots and Heroes Park features a miniature Golden Gate Bridge chopped in half, a Statue of Liberty, an Empire State Building, and a Niagara Falls, as well as a replica of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a statue of the Archangel Michael, a tribute to The Battle of the Bulge (complete with a realistic Nazi tank), a memorial to the victims of Flight 3407, and a reproduction of the flag-raising on the ruins of the World Trade Center.