43 Best Sights in The Adirondacks and Thousand Islands, New York

More than 100,000 Adirondack artifacts are in the collection of this acclaimed museum that explores the history and culture of the region. The 32-acre complex, on Blue Mountain Lake, encompasses 23 indoor and outdoor exhibit areas that examine nearly every feature of Adirondack life, including resort life, wood crafts, logging and mining, guide boats, and environmental issues. A library, snack bar, and shop are on-site.

George C. Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, began building this 120-room Rhineland-style castle on Heart Island for his wife, Louise, in 1900. Four years later, when she died suddenly, he ceased work on the castle. The building remained deserted for 73 years, abused by vandals and weather. Since 1977, millions of dollars have been poured into restoration work. It's worth a trip to the 5-acre island to see the castle. Its fleet of wooden boats is in the Boldt Yacht House, on Wellesley Island. Uncle Sam Boat Tours runs shuttle boats between Alexandria Bay, Heart Island, and Wellesley Island.

One of the finest art museums in the northeastern United States, the Hyde Collection encompasses some 2,800 pieces including paintings and works on paper by artists such as Josef Albers, Sandro Botticelli, Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Paul Cézanne, William Merritt Chase, Leonardo da Vinci, Edgar Degas, Thomas Eakins, El Greco, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Antiques, fine period furniture, and decorative arts are also displayed, as are temporary exhibits. Audio Tours are available.

The center was built for the 1932 Olympics and renovated and expanded for the 1980 Games. During the latter, the arena here was the site of the U.S. ice-hockey team's win over the seemingly unbeatable Soviets, which led the men to a U.S. gold medal. The victory came to be known as the "Miracle on Ice." The center also houses other ice rinks, a museum, and convention space. Winter Olympics enthusiasts can purchase bobsled and luge rides with a professional on the competition track for $60 to $75. Tours of the center are available at 10, 11:30, and 1, Tuesday through Saturday for $8.50. A 50-minute audiocassette tour of the center is an option. The center hosts hockey and figure-skating tournaments and ice shows as well as other special events.

A stop by the 1932 & 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympic Museum is a fitting way to begin your tour of Lake Placid. Displays here, including sports outfits and gear, explain the history and legacy of the Olympic Games at Lake Placid.

An old school building houses a museum, where the rather eclectic collection includes a bobsled from the 1932 Winter Olympics, antique dolls, artifacts from Fort Crown Point, and, out back, a 58-foot fire tower. The property also includes gardens.

In July and August, the 12:30 train features nature stories and a lecture by resident scholar Bernie Davis. Davis regales passengers with stories about the Adirondacks and nearby areas. Or, from late May to late October, you may take a scenic 20-mi train ride south to Otter Lake. Trains leave from the station in Thendara, 2 mi southwest of Old Forge.

Boats and river memorabilia depict life on the St. Lawrence River. The collection of 205 craft includes an 8-foot canoe and a 65-foot yacht. Landlubbers may appreciate an exhibit that shows the Thousand Islands as a vacation destination; in its heyday, 15 trains arrived daily from New York City and Boston.

The arts center sponsors exhibits, performances, artists' receptions, and special events focusing on Adirondack traditions and artists. Classes and workshops for children and adults teach everything from watercolor and basket weaving to poetry. The center also organizes hikes.

The 1½-mi-long chasm opened to the public in 1870, becoming the country's first natural tourist attraction. The geological spectacle continues to be popular and is often overrun with visitors in summer.

A deck allows you to view formations such as Elephant Head with its trunk of rock. The trail around the rim provides soaring views, and stone walkways and stairways descend into the chasm. Sightseeing can be combined with a kayak, raft, or inner-tube ride on the Ausable River. Two-hour lantern tours start at dusk. The flickering lights transform the 500-million-year-old mass of time-sculpted stone formations. Reservations are required.

Located right next to Enchanted Forest, this amusement complex offers go-karts, bumper boats, miniature golf, and an arcade. A Pizza Hut is on-site. Attractions cost a ticket or more each, and each ticket is $5.

A visit to the painstakingly restored home of the DeLong family—who lived here from 1860 to 1910—gives you a glimpse of life in the 19th-century Adirondacks. Guided tours of the house are available Tuesday through Friday and Sunday 1–4 and Saturday 10–4. Changing exhibits showcase regional history, and an extensive photo collection displays the work of Seneca Ray Stoddard (1843–1917).

The field station, part of a Cornell University extension program, encompasses more than 200 forested acres, a greenhouse, and orchards. An exhibit here explains how maple syrup is made. You may buy some syrup to take home with you. Tours are available by appointment and are recommended during the production season, February through April. The station is also sometimes open on weekends in March and April.

Since the earliest European explorations of North America, long and narrow Lake Champlain has been considered an important strategic waterway. Both the French and English built forts along its shores. This site includes the ruins of the 1734 French fort, Fort Saint Frederic, and the 1759 British complex, Fort Crown Point. Exhibits at the visitor center give you historical context.

Highlights at this water park include a tidal-wave pool and a multiperson tube ride called the Amazon. The Black River waterslide and the Bombay Blaster chutes have you gliding through darkness. The complex includes traditional amusement rides and themed areas such as Story Book Lane for the younger set. Circus shows are offered twice daily.

The fort, built alongside Lake Champlain by the French (in 1755–58), was originally named Fort Carillon. It was captured by the British in 1759 and renamed Fort Ticonderoga. The colonists took over in 1775, but only until 1777, when the British managed to place cannons atop Mt. Defiance, which overlooks the fort. You may drive up to the summit of Mt. Defiance and take in the views of the fort, the valley, and Lake Champlain. The fort presents living-history demonstrations, including cannon drills, musket firings, and fife-and-drum performances in July and August. Permanent exhibits include weapons and Revolutionary War artifacts. Thirty-minute guided tours with costumed interpreters are available. The grounds also encompass several gardens (open daily 10–4 from June to Columbus Day).

The "fort" here is actually a reconstruction of the 1755 original, which was built by the British, used in the French and Indian War, and written about in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. The complex encompasses barracks, dungeons, and an example of an Iroquois longhouse, as well as artifacts recovered from the original fort site, which is nearby. Tours, led by guides dressed in 18th-century military garb, start on the hour; demonstrations include the firing of muskets and cannons. Ghost tours of the museum and Lake George are also available on Friday and Saturday nights.

The mine, started in 1878, is one of the largest garnet mines in the world. Guided tours, which include a walk through an open-pit mine, leave from the Gore Mountain Mineral Shop; you follow the guide in your car to the actual mines, at the base of Gore Mountain.

Sagamore Lodge and the 26 adjoining buildings that make up Great Camp Sagamore were built in the late 1800s by William West Durant, a prominent Adirondack figure. Designed in a Swiss-chalet style, the lodge was built with native spruce, cedar, and granite, and its rustic style set a precedent among the well-heeled set with retreats in the area. Bought and expanded by the Vanderbilt family in the early 1900s, Sagamore is now owned and run by a nonprofit organization that sponsors meetings, seminars, and classes, and rents rooms by the night or week. Classes and activities include canoeing, rustic furniture making, mosaic twig decoration, and mountain music. Tours (reservations required) take you to a blacksmith shop, furniture shop, icehouse, and livestock buildings, as well as to the main lodge. The camp is about 30 mi southwest of Blue Mountain Lake.

Six roller coasters are among the 125-plus rides at this theme park. The water-park area (open Memorial Day through Labor Day) includes labyrinthine slides, a 25,000-square-foot wave pool, and a raft ride with waterfalls and water bombs. Shows include a high-dive act.

A spectacular 700-foot waterfall and ancient granite cliffs are highlights of the self-guided tour of this gorge. It was created as the Ausable River cut through the granite base of Whiteface Mountain. In winter, you can rent snowshoes, skis, or snowboards. Nearby are a shop, restaurant, and picnic areas. There are only two seasons to visit here: summer and winter.

Jewish peddlers in the Adirondacks built this synagogue in 1905. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the synagogue has been restored and contains art exhibits. It also hosts concerts and other activities.

More than 50 interactive exhibits of monsters and mayhem are on display here, including such favorites as Dracula and the Wolfman. Kindergartners and younger children may get quite a fright here.

Abolitionist John Brown lived for a short time on this 244-acre farm. In October 1859, Brown and his followers attempted to spark a slave revolt by taking over the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. His two sons and several of his followers were killed, and Brown was tried and executed. His body was brought back and buried here. A cross-country ski trail, a nature trail, and a picnic area are on the grounds, which are open all year.

An old 30-foot-tall ski slide right in town has been converted into a hair-raising toboggan run that spits you out onto and across iced-over Mirror Lake. The chute usually opens after Christmas but might be open as early as November and as late as February, so call to check conditions.

Polish soprano Marcella Sembrich (1858–1935), who sang with New York's Metropolitan Opera, used the building housing this museum as a vocal-instruction studio. The studio was part of her summer estate. You can walk along Lake George here and take in the beautiful vista. The museum, on the National Register of Historic Places, includes opera costumes, paintings, and assorted memorabilia.

You can explore the first four lakes of the Fulton Chain on a narrated sightseeing cruise aboard one of two 125-passenger boats. The 22-mi cruises usually take two hours; kids' cruises are 15 mi and take about 90 minutes. Dinner excursions are also available. From June to mid-September you may tag along on the 35-foot President Harrison as it delivers mail to lakefront camps and cottages. The mail boat service dates from 1902 and was spurred by Benjamin Harrison, whose family summered on Second Lake. The mailboat can take only 10 passengers, so reservations for this three-hour cruise are a good idea.

The towers of the 70- and 90-meter ski jumps here are stark and exposed and seem out of place, but the view from the top of the taller tower is dramatic. A glass-encased elevator takes you 26 stories to the top, where you get a bird's-eye view of the lay of the land and the High Peaks around Lake Placid. You also get a stomach-gripping view of what the jumpers see while preparing to take flight. During most of the year you may also opt to ride a chairlift up to the elevator. In summer, freestyle skiers practice twirls and somersaults into a 750,000 gallon pool.

The Olympic Sports Complex has 31 mi of groomed cross-country-skiing trails. Full-day trail passes are $18; lessons and rentals are available. You may also rent snowshoes here. From late June to early October, mountain bikers take over the trails (it's $10 for mountain biking).

Dedicated to preserving the legacy of innovative industrialist Allen Penfield, this museum has exhibits explaining his work using electricity in the process of iron-ore separation. This was the first industrial application of electricity. The museum, 3 mi southwest of Crown Point, also houses many Civil War artifacts and equipment on its 550-acre site.