dknottsfan

Looking to take a first time family trip to Adirondack Park in middle of June. Will have a full 5-6 days to spend exploring the park. Looking for any suggestions for hiking (not strenuous), boat tours, etc. Into nature seeing and history. We are coming in from the West. Any suggestions on things to do and places to stay would be great. Thanks.

nytraveler

Adirondacks are different from western Parks in that the area was settled before the park was created. So there are a number of towns in the park and a bunch of lodges and cabins - ranging from the very luxurious to the very basic.

So to advise it would help to know the make-up of your party and your nightly budget.

dshamritsky

I would recommend you stay in Lake Placid for two or three nights because there is plenty to see. You can tour the olympic facilities, the olympic museum, take boat rides, and personally my favorite take a car ride to the summit of whiteface. The adirondacks are not like yellowstone or yosemite, in fact it is bigger than yellowstone. The thing is that there are lots of small and even big towns in the park so it becomes more like towns with wilderness filling in between them not wilderness with small villages like western national park. It is a great place to visit but I need more information.

dknottsfan

There will 4 in the group. Two adults & 2 kids (11 & 9 yrs.). I thought a couple days at Lake Placid would be cool. Just looking online I noticed the different "regions" to the park. I was just curious if there are any "must see" places. We like to hike, see waterfalls, visit historic places, take boat tours. I'm just trying to get a feel for how long I'd actually need to plan. Also wondering if I could make Lake Placid the home base and do day trips? Thanks for the input.

dshamritsky

Lake Placid would be a great place as a home base but I can not help out much on places to go hiking and waterfalls since I went there to ski. One thing I will remember is that the olympic museum was really cool and you can even get a ride on a bobsled with some professionals on the year round bobsled track.

Sorry that I can't help out much but I would look around on fodors and you can always decide on what hikes to do depending on weather and trail conditions when you are already there. Something that I always wanted to try that I saw a lot of there was ice climbing but there obviously wouldn't be any ice in the summer.

maxima

have you looked at the official website for the Adirondacks?

http://visitadirondacks.com/

Lake Placid is a good base for hiking, canoe or kayaking, and the town has the Olympic museum and some other sites.

Lake George is also very popular and is more commercial. But there are other areas on the lake that are nice and not as developed.

Be prepared to deal with deer ticks when hiking. You need to have the proper deet type of repellents. Lyme disease is a problem in the area but if you take proper precautions you should be fine.

nytraveler

Lake George is right on the edge of the Adirondaks and while the Lake is beautiful the town leaves a lot to be desired. It is very honky tonk - focusing on amusements rather than nature.

If it is the latter you are looking for - don;t stay in or near the town but head further north. Not sure how you are getting there - driving or flying - but I would definitely head further north.