For my birthday this year, Bryce and I decided to do a week long camping trip in upstate New York since we mainly stay in Manhattan. Of course, I couldn’t be that close to the city and not venture in one day. But we were able to see a lot of fall colors on the trees and loved seeing all of the waterfalls on our hikes.
Keep on reading for my day-to-day adventures!
Day 0, Sunday October 11, 2026: Travel Day
Our first day was to drive around 730 miles from Missouri … through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and finally to New York. We arrived (on the wrong side of the park at first) at Allegany State Park. We got our tent set up just before 6pm, cooked up some burgers, and then decided to lay down and go to bed. The stars were really pretty at this park!
Day 1, Monday October 12, 2026: Niagara Falls
We woke up and started getting ready at 6am, even though it was still dark out. We made breakfast and coffee for the road and finally left the state park around 7am. But we took the long way out of the park and it took about 50 minutes to finally get to a main road. Our first stop was Niagara Falls State Park. We had both been years ago, so it was the first time we visited together. We parked on Goat Island, walked onto the Three Sisters Island, the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls, and the Bridal Veil Falls. There was also an exhibit on the Indigenous People who lived in the original territory, specifically the Onöndowaga (Seneca) people. After walking back to our car, we made some lunch and then headed to our next stop.
We stopped at the Japanese Garden of Buffalo County. It was a free garden so we decided to check it out, but it only walked around half of a small lake and we walked to the end of the garden and back in less than a half mile. So then we stopped at the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, a 12 acre and mostly indoor garden. It was also small but it had some fun plants. Our last stop was Griffis Sculpture Park, a 435 acre outdoor art museum with over 250 works of art. We were able to spend about an hour walking the trails and viewing the art. Then we headed back to the campsite. We cooked up some chicken for dinner and then went to bed by 8pm!
Day 2, Tuesday October 13, 2026: Corning Museum of Glass
We had a slower morning today. We got ready, made a hot breakfast, and packed up the tent. We hit the road at 9 and then stopped at a Starbucks to get some WiFi. And I got to try their iced banana bread latte. We then drove about an hour and a half to Corning where we spent 3 hours at the Corning Museum of Glass. We watched their flameworking demonstration and went through all of the exhibits. We liked their innovation center and the different galleries of contemporary art and special exhibits. We did walk through the “35 Centuries of Glass Galleries” and that’s when I felt really overwhelmed at so much glass.
My favorite exhibits (featured above) was Forest Glass by Katherine Gray, It’s Raining Knives by Silvia Levenson, Mountain Bear by Dan Friday Kwul Kwul Tw, Meteorite dall’Influenza Veneziana by Einar de la Torre and James de la Torre, Southwest Breeze/53-Year-Old Cactus/The Biggest Species of Its Genus by Flo Perkins.
On the way out of town, we stopped to get an extra veggie to eat with our leftover chicken and then drove over to Robert Treman State Park for our second campground site.
Day 3, Wednesday October 14, 2026: Hiking
We left our campsite at 8am today and hiked a 2.6 mile trail at Watkins Glen. This trail had 19 waterfalls with a 500 elevation gain/832 steps. It was a really pretty hike with so many fall colors and so much water! We then drove to Ithaca and saw the Ithaca Falls which is a 150 feet high and 175 feet wide waterfall. We decided to get lunch out today since we were tired of eating sandwiches. So we found a Thai place for lunch and then we stopped at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology to see their bird museum. They had a few trails but we did a short 0.7 mile hike around the small water lake there. Then we drove to Buttermilk Falls State Park and did another 1.6 mile hike. We counted 664 steps to the top. On the way back to our campsite, we got an ice cream treat at Dairy Queen because I was craving ice cream. Once we got back to our campsite we did another small walk across the campground to see the Lower Falls at Robert Treman State Park before cooking up some salmon for dinner at our campsite. By the time 7pm rolled around, we were in bed and asleep!
Day 4, Thursday October 15, 2026: My Birthday!
Happy Birthday Katie! We woke at 6am after 3 hours of decent rain. But when we checked the weather it said there was no rain and no rain projected for the rest of the day. By 6:30am, the rain had pretty much subsided so we drove to Taughannock Falls. We walked the gorge trail to see the 215 foot falls, which is the tallest waterfall in northeastern US and even taller than Niagara Falls (Horseshoe Falls is only 188 feet tall). On the walk to the falls, we saw murders of crows flying above. After seeing Taughannock Falls, I located the only Starbucks in town, which happened to be inside of the Target, so I could redeem my free birthday drink, a Pumpkin Spice Latte. We took our coffees to go and headed over to stroll Cornell’s Botanical Gardens. After we spent some time browsing in the gift shop, we drove to Long Point Winery. I got a glass of their Sweet Lissy, a sweet Riesling wine. We sat outside with views overlooking the Cayuga Lake. Less than 5 minutes away was the Long Point State Park, so we drove other there to get a close up view of the water.
We decided to do my birthday meal for lunch. We ate at Hot Pot Meets BBQ and did Korean BBQ for lunch. Even though there aren’t as many meat options at lunch than at dinner, I’m always happy with beef bulgogi which they always have for lunch and dinner. After lunch, we stopped in at the Museum of the Earth that has exhibits from Earth’s origin to present day (all 4.5 billion years in about an hour). We saw a Stegosaurus sculpture made in Milwaukee that attended the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and then made it to the Smithsonian before coming to Ithaca. There was also the Hyde Park Mastodon, one of the most complete mastodon skeletons! I liked the exhibits about glaciers and the ice age the most. As a sign said, “if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute (or a million years).” Our last stop before our campsite was a 2.1 mile loop hike to see Lucifer Falls at Robert Treman State Park.
Before heading to bed, we checked the weather. It was the one night that was supposed to rain from midnight until around 6pm tomorrow. I don’t mind being in the tent when it rains, but we needed to pack up the tent and set it up at the next location and doing that in the rain with a wet tent sounded miserable. So we packed up the tent, drove about 45 minutes south, and checked into the Tioga Downs Casino Resort. At least when we set up the tent tomorrow, we will have a dry tent and hopefully no more rain for the next few days!
Day 5, Friday October 16, 2026: New York State Museum
We slept in late and then are at the casino buffet for $15 for both of us. We finally hit the road at 10am and went to Albany where we spent 2.5 hours at the New York State Museum. The museum is 100,000 square feet and had exhibits on ancient life in NY, the Adirondack Wilderness, birds, fire trucks and 9-11, a Cohoes Mastodon and a 38 foot Skelton of an Atlantic Right Whale. I enjoyed the exhibit on all kinds of different minerals. They also had a full size 1914 Herschell-Spillman Company carousel that you could ride, which we did of course!
After the museum, we stopped at the grocery store and got more gas, and then went to Lake Taghkanic State Park. Of course it started to rain as we pulled in, but we got the tent set up, found a covered pavilion to cook up some ground turkey and veggies, and then got into bed. It dropped to 42 degrees at night, but I thought it was finally a cool night to get a good night’s sleep.
Day 6, Saturday October 17, 2026: Broadway NYC
We woke up, showered and got ready, and then headed into Poughkeepsie, a 40 minute drive from our campground. We boarded the commuter train and within 2 hours, we were in downtown Manhattan. We stopped at our favorite Thai restaurant for lunch and then stopped in the Hershey and M&M stores before heading to the Circle on the Square Theatre. We saw Just in Time with Jeremy Jordan. After the show, we grabbed a slice of pizza and headed back to Grand Central Station for a ride back to Poughkeepsie. It was a quiet and easy train ride, and we both got to catch up on some reading.
Day 7, Sunday October 18, 2026: NY State Sheep and Wool Festival
We camped last night and it got down to 30 degrees! Once we woke up, got ready, and packed up the tent, we went to the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival. There were tons of wool and yarn and fiber art supplies alone with sheep and llama and alpacas and rabbits. It took us 3 hours to browse. I ended up getting some goat milk lotion and a needle felting craft. Afterwards we did a 2.5 mile walk at Poet’s Walk, a trail with pavilions and views of the Hudson River. We even got to see a hairy woodpecker! Then we headed back to Robert Treman for another night of 30 degree camping.
Day 8, Monday October 19, 2026: Travel Day
We were up at 5am and on the road at 6am. We made it to Ohio, where we finally stopped in at a Buc-ee’s for the first time. We were near our campsite (in Ohio) when we decided to drive the full 900 miles back to St. Louis instead of breaking it into 2 days. By 8:30pm, we were back at home! In all, we drove 2739 miles over the entire week!
All good trips have an end, and our time in New York had come to an end. I’m glad we got to see all of the pretty leaves. As we were driving back home, it seemed like half of the leaves on all the trees had already fallen off since we first arrived a week ago!