Looking for a fun summer activity that’s not too far away and doesn’t involve a lot of planning? Check out the newly developed Upstate Eats Trail not too far away!
To start, we’re going to pass by the fact that there’s an Upstate Eats Trail and doesn’t include a single Capital Region location. The trail itself is a partnership between the tourism organizations of Binghamton, Buffalo/Niagara, Rochester, and Syracuse.
According to their website, “If you were to drive the Trail straight through, one way from Binghamton to Buffalo, it’s 225 miles long. You can do the whole trail in 2-3 days, but we recommend 4-5 days to take in the many things to see and do – and EAT — along the way.”
Us, 518-ers, would mostly likely start in Binghamton (unless you want to get yourself out to Buffalo and experience all of this on the drive back home). The first stop on their tour is Lupo’s S&S Char Pit in Binghamton which is about a 2 hours drive from Albany (so, make sure you eat breakfast). With each stop, they give you a bit a background information on the restaurant itself as well as their specialty, in this case spiedies. Not every stop is just food, they also throw some breweries in there as well. Just, make sure you have a friend and are splitting meals because there’s a lot of food on here and I can’t imagine you’d want to miss any of it!
Aside from all of the food, they also recommend a few places in town to explore, for example, Binghamton’s The Phelps Mansion Museum. Also, if you (somehow) end up hungry on the drive, they also recommend some roadside places to stop too.
Though, I’m sad that they don’t make it as far as us through the state, I love this idea. I would love if Albany, Schenectady, and Troy tourism could get together with the Hudson Valley or North Country and create our own trail the other way (North-South). If that was the case, what places would HAVE to be on the trail?