I Heart New York
If you haven’t noticed, LTR just recently did three shows on California. One of the major focuses of these shows and the tourism in Cali was the delicious food and wine. But did you know that you don’t have to fly across the country to have similar food and wine experiences? In fact, top quality food and wine are in our back door here in New York!
On Wednesday, July 22nd, Empire State Development, NY’s Division of Tourism with the I LOVE NY Campaign hosted a conference event previewing fall tourism attractions in the different regions of NY, and you bet Let’s Travel Radio was there.
What struck me the most was how much New York has to offer in the previously mentioned food and drink areas. Sometimes living in the City makes one forget that this state is full of rich farmland (and has more cows than any other state I was told by a representative of the Capital-Saratoga region).
Representative experts form the Finger Lakes, Hudson Valley, and Capital-Saratoga all boasted about the great wine tasting tours available in their respective areas. I had a glass of a Millbrook Wine from Millbrook’s Winery in the Hudson Valley region, and I approve! (This area is easily accessible by MetroNorth Trains too). The Finger Lakes has a Wine trail comprised of 32 wineries that enclose Seneca Lake (for more info: FingerLakesWineCountry.com).
Also, multiple regional representatives featured new distilleries and breweries in their areas. I got to try a sample shot of the Catskill Distilling Company’s Peace Vodka—very smooth! In Central NY there is a new gin distillery as well as several breweries.
If you are really into organic, other farm fresh food options, and Agricultural-tourism, the Finger Lakes, Catskills and Capital-Saratoga regions seem to be the premiere options with many ‘farm-to-table’ restaurants and outlets. Finger Lakes actually has a Restaurant Week coming up October 22-29th during the height of harvest.
Other fall events that stuck out to me were Capital-Saratoga’s Washington County Cheese Tour (Sept. 8-9), a jazz festival and the Jack-o-lantern blaze in the Hudson Valley, scenic train rides for fall foliage in the Adirondacks, and the Big Eddy Film Festival in Narrowsburg (Sept 14-16th).
But the options are truly endless here. There is an astounding range of things to do in the different regions, including numerous of family-based activities.
Fun fact: the Adirondacks region is bigger than the state of Massachusetts and has over 3,000 miles of hiking trails!
Here are the big links to check out
madfoods.com
visitadirondacks.com
travelhudsonvalley.com
catskillsconnect.com
www.capital-saratoga.com/top-events
iloveny.com/fall
Rachel Zaydak, LTR, web contributor and social media manager
