My husband & I will be traveling between Niagara & Albany (4 hr drive) seeing relatives at Honeyoye & Auburn.

I was interested in a nice town to stay the night in. It needs to be fairly close to Albany (under a 1 hr drive), since we will be flying out the next day. It has been a long time since I've been to NY and my husband has never been. We are used to long drives and that is not an issue for us.

When are you traveling? How about staying in Saratoga Springs? It is about 40 minutes to the Albany airport.

Saratoga Springs is indeed a beautiful town, but it is off your direct route and if you'll be arriving during racing season and don't yet have a reservation, you can almost forget about staying there.

Should you go to Saratoga, don't drive to Albany, take thruway exit 28, follow Rt30A north to Johntown, then take Rt 29 east to Saratoga.

I'd suggest a stop somewhere along Little Falls to Amsterdam, where you are still within an hour of Albany. Rates should be lower, and some of the things you can explore are Amish farms in the hills of the Mohawk valley, the Erie Canal system and modern-day "locks". Reveolutionary war history such as Oriskany, Fort Johnson, Johnson Hall. Do a google search on the term "leatherstocking"

I agree with RB.

The next whistle stop West of Amsterdam is Utica.

In reality, if you've driven all the way to Amsterdam, it'll just be 30-40min more just to drive to Albany. There are a bunch of hotels along Wolf Rd that are easy to get to from the highway, and very close to the airport.

Thank you so much for your replys. I will do some web-searching & probably reserve a room pretty quickly.

Also - does anyone have any suggestions for affordable but nice hotels near Niagara Falls on the Canadian side?
We will be staying for 2 nights during the week.

Thanks!

Cooperstown isn't too far from Albany, and it's lovely. Hudson, NY, 30 minutes south of Albany, has lovely antique shops and B&Bs.

Hi Art Lover-

I love north of Albany in Latham (actually, in the town where the airport is!) and I wanted to tell you two things:

1) Saratoga is a lovely place to visit! It is only about 25 minutes from us, and we go often. Plenty of shops and nice restaurants, etc.

2) If you are going during track season (end of July-August) you will have a VERY hard time finding accommodations in Saratoga. The horse race track attracts people from all over, and hotels & B&Bs fill quickly, even near me!

I hope that your plan is for after August! Saratoga is great, and a very easy ride straight up the Northway from the ALB (airport).

We leave in just a few days for upstate NY. Since we will be in & around Albany the first week of August, I will try to get accomodations near the airport. However we will try to include a stopover in one of the towns you all suggested. Thank you for your advice.