12 Great Things to do in the Hudson Valley
A sailboat on the Hudson River photographed from the Mario Cuomo Bridge walkway. Photos by John O'Boyle / The Empty Nest Explorers
Updated: July 11, 2026
We really love the Hudson Valley region of New York State! It has so much to offer - interesting historical sites, beautiful scenery, nature activities, and a growing restaurant scene.
It is also famous as a wine-producing and cider-producing region, has excellent antique shopping and serves up a wide variety of artistic and cultural experiences. All within an hour or so drive from NYC.
When I think of the Hudson Valley, what comes to mind is a respect for the old with an eye on the modern. There is a legacy of “old money” in this neck of the woods, yielding a fine legacy of luxurious mansions and estates for today’s visitors to tour. And yet, there is plenty of small-town charm, with progressive and artsy downtowns and a strong connection to the region’s maritime and agricultural roots.
Here are some of our favorite things to do in the Hudson Valley:
Use Rhinebeck as your Hudson Valley base
Downtown Rhinebeck at dusk.
If you're staying more than a day, Rhinebeck is where we'd put you.
The village is small enough to walk end to end in about twenty minutes. It has good restaurants, a proper bookstore, and a Saturday farmers market. But Route 9 runs right through it, which is the real advantage.
From Rhinebeck, the FDR sites, the Vanderbilt Mansion, and Kingston are all a short drive. You can sleep somewhere charming and still reach most of this list in under half an hour.
The Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome is nearby too, with vintage aircraft and weekend air shows in season.
We wrote a full guide to it here: Visiting Rhinebeck, NY: The Perfect Hudson Valley Base
Eat at the Culinary Institute of America
A chef instructor puts the finishing touches on a pizza. We got to chat with him about the wood burning brick oven.
There is no shortage of dining in the Hudson Valley. But if you are in Hyde Park, the Culinary Institute of America is something different. It sits right on Route 9, so you will likely drive past it anyway.
The campus is beautiful. It overlooks the Hudson and feels more like a small college than a cooking school, which is exactly what it is. Students earn full degrees here in everything from food science to restaurant management.
The restaurants are the reason to stop. Students run them under the supervision of their chef instructors, and you are essentially eating their coursework.
Our meal at Al Forno
Debbie and John sitting at the bar. We would absolutely recommend sitting here.
We ate at Al Forno, and we would go back tomorrow.
Al Forno is the casual room inside Ristorante Caterina de' Medici. Rustic farm tables, wood oven pizza, and simple regional Italian dishes.
We sat at the bar, which turned out to be the best decision of the day. The kitchen is open and you watch the whole thing happen a few feet in front of you.
At one point the chef walked us through how they put the char on the dishes coming out of the brick oven. You do not get that at a normal restaurant.
We shared the meatballs and the meat and cheese board. Both were terrific.
Then came the panna cotta. Off the charts.
It arrived covered in edible flowers, and John and I both stopped to look at it before either of us picked up a spoon.
Easily one of the best desserts we have had anywhere.
The panna cotta with edible flowers.
How to actually get a table
Here is the useful part. The formal restaurants book up weeks in advance. Bocuse is the French one, American Bounty does Hudson Valley farm to table, and Ristorante Caterina de' Medici is the grand Tuscan villa dining room.
Al Forno is the back door. It is part of Caterina de' Medici, but it is far easier to get into, and you still eat food made by the same students in the same building.
The Apple Pie Bakery Café is another easy option, and the student food hall, The Egg, is open to the public.
View of Caterina de' Medici restaurant.
A few things to know before you go
The restaurants are closed Sunday and Monday. Hours also shift with the students' academic calendar, so check the website before you drive over.
The campus is cashless. Bring a card.
And here is the one that surprises people. Students are not permitted to accept tips. Instead a 20 percent Student Support Surcharge goes on every check, and it funds student scholarships. So your meal costs a bit more than the menu suggests.
You can also book a behind the scenes tour of the campus if you want to see the teaching kitchens.
A pretty inspiring place to spend an afternoon.
Visit Historic New Paltz
New Paltz maintains its "funky" flavor with nice touches like this John Lennon photo.
Lively New Paltz is a SUNY college town, historic site and “hippie hotspot”. It is also a gateway to many outdoor activities in the beautiful Hudson Valley Heritage Region, and it is only 90 miles from NYC, easily accessible via the NY Thruway.
Highlights of a visit to New Paltz include a walk through the Historic Huguenot Street District. Seven stone houses built by the French Huguenot settlers in the 1700s are preserved in this area, as well as their burial ground at nearby Walloon Church. This settlement is considered the oldest continuously inhabited street in America. It is interesting just to walk about in this historic neighborhood - it feels rather suburban! - or you find out about touring inside the homes here.
Another area of interest in New Paltz is its funky and eclectic downtown. You’ll find artsy shops and lots of eateries on Main Street. It is also fun to explore the Water Street Market, connected to Main Street via a narrow walkway. The Market is an attractive and stylish European-inspired shopping village and community center, where every shop is independently owned by locals. I made some good finds there!
With the Wallkill River nearby, and the Shawangunk Mountains of Minnewaska State Park a short drive west, there is no shortage of outdoor activity here. Kayak rentals are available at Sojourner Truth Park on Plains Road, a small village park right on the Wallkill.
Connecting New Paltz to Kingston, this part of the Empire State Trail encompasses the scenic Wallkill Valley Rail Trail, which repurposes the former Wallkill Valley Railroad rail corridor. The trail is one of the prettiest bike rides in the region, winding through mature woods, past historic iron works, and over the historic Rosendale railroad trestle.
Perrine's Covered Bridge is worth a stop for a photo if you're driving between New Paltz and Kingston. It was built in 1844 and still carries pedestrians across the Wallkill. You'll find it in Rifton, near where Route 32 meets Route 213, sitting right alongside the New York State Thruway.
Read more about visiting New Paltz in our separate post - A Visit to Historic New Paltz, NY
Check out the sculptures of Storm King Art Center
A very unique attraction in New Windsor, NY is Storm King Art Center, an open-air museum of large-scale sculptures set out across the natural landscape. It takes its name from nearby Storm King Mountain, and features work by modern masters like Alexander Calder and Henry Moore, along with contemporary sculptors.
Part of Storm King's mission is to preserve the surrounding landscape, so the Hudson Valley really is at its heart. Nature is the backdrop rather than gallery walls. Every visit is different depending on the season, the weather, and the time of day.
Plan on 2 to 3 hours. There are more than 100 outdoor sculptures spread across 500 acres.
Admission runs $25 for adults, which is not cheap. Parking is included, and the idea of pairing a serious art collection with a long walk outdoors makes it money well spent.
The terrain varies a lot. Rolling meadows, hills, wooded areas, paved paths, gravel paths, and mown lawn. Wear real shoes.
Before you drive out there
Storm King is closed on Tuesdays. It also closes for the winter and reopens in April. Check the calendar before you go.
Advance timed tickets are recommended and can be booked on the Storm King website.
Personal bikes are not allowed on the property. You can rent bikes onsite instead, first come and first served, and helmets are required.
We think driving is the easiest way to get around the Hudson Valley generally, and that holds for Storm King. Parking is ample but fills on nice summer days. Arrive early or go on a weekday if you can.
You can also take a Coach USA bus from Port Authority in NYC. The round-trip fare includes admission. Details are on Storm King's Plan Your Visit page.
Take a scenic walk on the Walkway Over the Hudson
The view from the Walkway over the Hudson.
We absolutely love the Walkway Over the Hudson, a unique pedestrian and bicycle path created on a defunct railroad bridge that traverses the Hudson River from Poughkeepsie to Highland, NY.
As the world’s longest elevated pedestrian bridge, the views from the walkway are fantastic! And being part of the Empire State Trail, it is well maintained and features points of interest along the way, as well as special event days. The terrain is flat, paved, and easy.
This is a top-notch Hudson Valley experience. Can’t say enough good things about it!
Access is free during regular operations but there are sometimes special events in the park that require tickets.
We have lots of information about the Walkway in our post Walking Across the Hudson River: GWB, Tappan Zee and Walkway Over the Hudson - so be sure and check that out.
Tour FDR’s home and Presidential Library
A bust of FDR outside the library entrance.
Hyde Park is one of the best towns in the Hudson Valley, and the highlight of visiting this charming area is taking a tour of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s home, Springwood, and his Presidential Library & Museum, which is also located on the estate.
The FDR Library & Museum is endlessly interesting - it features such artifacts as his presidential desk, car he drove with hand controls, the actual office he worked when at Hyde Park with his furniture still set up, and a recreation of the Map Room he used in the White House to monitor the progress of WWII.
This was the first Presidential museum established in the USA and set the mold for all that followed. This is a must see!
Do take the time to tour his beloved home, Springwood as well! It’s lovingly preserved and the 45-minute guided tour is totally worth it.
The house is set up as it was in the 1940s during FDR’s life and it is full of family heirlooms and personal treasures.
Springwood is $15, and the FDR Library is a separate $15 ticket.
Note - the America the Beautiful pass covers Springwood, Val-Kill, and Vanderbilt but not the Library, and there's a $45 annual pass covering FDR and Vanderbilt for the cardholder plus three guests.
Plan on spending half a day on the beautiful grounds here along the Hudson; you won’t be disappointed. Please do this - it’s awesome!
For complete info and our personal insight on this great visit, check out our very thorough post about it: Visiting FDR’s home and Presidential Library.
Tour Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt's home
Springwood was the family home. Val-Kill was Eleanor's own.
She built it as a place to escape her mother-in-law, and it's the only National Historic Site in the country dedicated to a first lady. It sits a couple of miles from Springwood in Hyde Park, and the two pair naturally in a single day.
We toured the cottage on a quiet July morning with a ranger, which is the only way inside. The grounds and gardens are open on their own and cost nothing.
There is also a swimming pool on the property where FDR once swam with King George VI. That story alone is worth the visit. 😊
Tours run on a limited schedule and the cottage is closed some days of the week, so check before you drive over.
Our full guide is here: Visiting Val-Kill: Eleanor Roosevelt's Home in Hyde Park
Visit the Vanderbilt Mansion
While in Hyde Park, you can also pay a visit to the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site. Located on Vanderbilt Road (of course!)
The mansion, built in the late1890s, was the Vanderbilts’ “summer cottage” and it’s as glitzy as you might expect from the nouveau-riche Gilded Age family. Unlike the Roosevelts, who were “old money” New Yorkers, the Vanderbilts felt the need to impress their guests and built the elaborate home to show off what their “new money” could do. The interior is lavishly decorated to display their wealth and worldliness.
You can take a guided tour of the mansion for $15 per adult; information is available from the National Park Service here.
We didn’t take the tour and opted just to walk the grounds around the estate. There are hundreds of acres to explore, including lovely gardens and trails throughout the park.
If you start early and time it right, you could definitely visit both Roosevelt and Vanderbilt mansions in one day; they are not far from each other.
Vanderbilt tickets are first come, first served. No individual reservations, and tours can sell out in summer and October.
Explore the unique neighborhoods of Kingston, NY
We enjoyed our dinner at Savona's.
Kingston is a great stop while exploring the Hudson Valley, easily accessed right off the NY Thruway. It offers not only the prerequisite charmingly strollable streets of shops and restaurants, but a very interesting waterfront area, where you can enjoy a boat excursion or visit several unique museums.
Kingston is comprised of three distinct neighborhoods:
Uptown Kingston, also known as “The Stockade” is known for its architecturally distinctive buildings, a historic church, art galleries, restaurants and eclectic shops.
Midtown Kingston is the creative center of Kingston, where artists have turned old industrial sites into studios. It also hosts the yearly O+ Festival in October, featuring music performances, visual and performance art, vendors and a variety of health and wellness workshops.
Downtown Kingston, also called the Rondout or waterfront, was our favorite part of town when we recently visited. There are lots of nice places to eat along Broadway, its main street. But the really cool part of Kingston is the waterfront along Rondout Creek, a tributary of the Hudson River, where barges once unloaded coal from points upstream.
There is an interesting Maritime Museum that delves into this rich heritage and several different options for sightseeing cruises, including visiting nearby Rondout Lighthouse.
This area also connects to the Empire State biking & hiking Trail along the waterfront.
For more details on visiting Kingston, read our recent blog post - A Visit to Kingston, NY: what to see and do.
Take a trip to Tarrytown & Sleepy Hollow
Flags mark the grave of Washington Irving.
Perhaps the quintessential Hudson Valley excursion is to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. The town served as the inspiration for Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and it goes out of its way to embrace its connection to that most famous of American ghost stories. Particularly in the month of October, when special tours and events take place.
Irving lived here for part of his boyhood and later returned to live out his final years at Sunnyside , his family retreat which is now a historical site that offers interesting tours.
Irving is buried at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, along with many other famous denizens of the area - including Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, Samuel Gompers, Elizabeth Arden, Leona Helmsley, Brooke Astor, and William Rockefeller. The cemetery is truly an amazing place - an extensive natural park in and of itself and worth exploring. But please be respectful - though historic, it is still an active cemetery.
The Cemetery also connects to the historic Old Dutch Reformed Church and its related burial grounds, where some graves go back as far as the Revolutionary War. Irving got the inspiration for some of his characters from reading the names on some of these headstones.
Lively Tarrytown has lots of good eats and great shopping, plus a Saturday farmer’s market at Patriot’s Park, and music performances at the Tarrytown Music Hall, a beautiful historic theater in the center of town.
Most posts about Tarrytown always mention the Kingsland Lighthouse (circa 1880) which is visible from the Tarrytown Light- Kingsland Point Path along the water. We have never quite figured out how to get onto this path - the area has been under semi-construction for awhile and we just can’t find the access. But if you figure it out let us know! - hello@theemptynestexplorers.com
Tarrytown & Sleepy Hollow are both part of the same community and are easily drivable, and also accessible by train.
We did an extensive blog post on Taking a Day Trip to Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown - so please check it out for lots more information.
Walk across the Mario Cuomo Bridge
The very wide two-way path across the Mario Cuomo Bridge.
This might sound a bit unusual, but there is a really nice walking and bike path on the Mario Cuomo Bridge. Its Westchester landing and entrance is in Tarrytown, so if you are overnighting in the area it’s an easy and different thing to do before you leave town.
The Bridge connects to South Nyack in Rockland County on the other end - but you don’t have to go all the way. Even just going to the center over the river and coming back is a fun experience. There are amenities like restrooms and some parking at both landings.
The Bridge Path, as walkway/bikeway is called, is beautifully paved and has six very different scenic overlooks for gazing over the Hudson River. Each stop is designed to celebrate the history of the Hudson Valley, and includes interactive and educational public art.
Plus, it’s a very uniquely designed bridge - it always feels like I am on a high masted sailing ship to me, even when driving across - and is usually aesthetically lit up at night in some striking, celebratory color, so it may be even more fun in the evening. (In fact, they have a lighting calendar on their website to explain what the colors are celebrating.)
The Bridge Path is open from 6am to 10pm. The approximate walk time, one-way is 80 minutes and the approximate bike time one way is 20 minutes.
We have more details on walking over the Mario Cuomo Bridge (and others!!) in our post Walking Across the Hudson River via 3 Popular Bridges.
Take a tour of West Point Military Academy
The public can visit West Point Military Academy by online reservation.
While you won’t be able to just freely roam the campus, visitors can take a guided bus tour of the West Point grounds, departing from the Visitors Center. Tours are available year-round and can be reserved three months in advance.
You can visit the West Point Museum which houses a vast collection of artifacts pertaining to the Academy and to the US Army. There's also a pretty cool Army gift shop.
On a previous visit to the museum at West Point, I was happy to see Astronaut Michael Collins, Command Module pilot of Apollo 11 and a hero of mine - represented among the exhibits at the museum. Collins was a graduate of West Point and he passed away in 2021, at the age of 90.
Lots of history in this region of the country!
We hope you enjoyed our suggestions for visiting the Hudson Valley.
There are many adventures to add, but this should get enough to get you started exploring one of our favorite regions that is not too far from home.
About the Authors
|
John and Debbie O'Boyle are the team behind The Empty Nest Explorers. John is a professional photographer whose work has been published by The New York Times, NBC News, and Getty Images. He is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers, has been part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team, and has received two New York Emmy nominations. Debbie is a writer with 30+ years of professional photography experience, formerly with The Star-Ledger and NJ.com. Together, they create in-depth travel guides for couples and empty-nest travelers who want to make the most of every destination. |
Where to stay in the Hudson Valley
Moondance Ridge Bed & Breakfast
Full-service spa
Swimming pool
Breakfast
More information here
Elmrock Inn
18th-century Dutch Colonial farmhouse
Two-course farm-style breakfast
Luxury Bed Linens and Plush Towels
More information here
Hutton Brickyards Riverfront Hotel
Unique rooms on the Hudson River
Firepit and bicycles
Free breakfast
More information here
Hudson Valley blog posts you might like:
