Why New York state is an action-packed playground

There’s something special about visiting the place where your favourite movie was set. That’s how I feel on arriving in the Catskills, a bucolic region of undulating forest 90 minutes north of New York.

It’s where Patrick Swayze swept Jennifer Grey off her feet in the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing.

I’m with my husband Marc and three children — twins Nathalie and Gabriel, 14, and Hannah, 12 — and the Catskills are the first of three stops on our week-long, action-packed itinerary.

Picturesque: Lake Placid offers stunning views of forest and mountains in the distance – just hours from New York City

There’s no dancing, but we hike, zip-line and visit the Bethel Woods Museum, where the Woodstock festival was held in 1969.

The Delaware River runs through the Catskills and acts as a state boundary. Renting kayaks from Lisa at Landers River Trips she tells us that the left bank is New York, the right is Pennsylvania.

‘Which is nicer?’ I ask. ‘New York’s classier,’ she says.

The children relish paddling on a state line and after negotiating some white-water rapids they kayak from bank to bank (the river’s only 30ft wide), yelling ‘I’m in New York.’ Then: ‘Now I’m in Pennsylvania.’ Deer and woodchucks roam the water’s edge. Eagles soar overhead. I have a thought. The river’s calm and shallow: the backdrop’s very Dirty Dancing.

‘Remember the scene where Swayze lifts Grey above his head in the water — shall we try it?’ I ask Marc. You can imagine his response.

The next morning we pack up the car and head 130 miles north-west leaving Swayze fantasies behind.

We’re heading for Thousand Islands, which even many New Yorkers haven’t heard of. I only recognise it because of the salad dressing which hails from here.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

The world’s largest kaleidoscope is in The Catskill Park. 

At 60ft tall, you can walk through the former grain silo for a show that changes seasonally.

It takes four hours (mostly on small roads) to reach our destination. There are actually 1,864 islands.

They straddle the American/Canadian border in the Saint Lawrence River and we’re immediately struck by their remoteness. During a speedboat ride from mainland’s Antique Boat Museum, we spot one island with just a cottage on it; another only a tree and a third with a tiny post office.

‘There are more deer here than people,’ says our captain.

We hear a love story that rivals the one in Dirty Dancing. Hotel magnate George Boldt, owner of Manhattan’s original Waldorf Astoria, built a fairytale castle on one of the islands for his wife. Heartbreakingly, she died before she could live in it, and a cruise with Uncle Sam Boat Tours allows us to disembark and explore the fortress and grounds.

Great outdoors: There are many family-friendly activities in upstate New York, as Jo Kessel discovered with her kids (pictured)

Great outdoors: There are many family-friendly activities in upstate New York, as Jo Kessel discovered with her kids (pictured)

Fairytale castle: Thousand Islands, New York, is home to Boldt Castle, built by the original owner of the Waldorf Astoria

Fairytale castle: Thousand Islands, New York, is home to Boldt Castle, built by the original owner of the Waldorf Astoria

Dinner that night feels romantic, too, at a restaurant called The Boathouse, overlooking the harbour. A rare, local fish called walleye (similar to perch) is on the menu. It’s light, tasty and cooked to perfection.

We’d happily stay longer, but one more New York address waits: Lake Placid. The town’s famous — the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics were hosted here. It’s two hours east, a vast, mountainous landscape of lake after shimmering lake.

Our hotel overlooks Mirror Lake which has a bijou beach where we relax on our first afternoon before getting stuck in. First we kayak — our guide gossips that the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and Guggenheims all own houses here.

Breathtaking views: Whiteface Mountain, one of the Adirondack's tallest peaks, offers a gorgeous panorama of Lake Placid

Breathtaking views: Whiteface Mountain, one of the Adirondack’s tallest peaks, offers a gorgeous panorama of Lake Placid

Next, we climb the top portion of Whiteface Mountain, one of the Adirondack’s tallest peaks. 

It’s a 20 minute thigh-busting clamber to the summit which has 360- degree views over what looks like Middle-earth — an endless panorama of rock-faces and lakes glistening a mile below.

TRAVEL FACTS 

America As You Like It (americaasyoulikeit.com, 020 8742 8299) offers a ten-night New York State Adventure from £1,880 pp, based on two sharing. 

Includes return Norwegian Air flights to New York, two nights at the William Vale hotel in Brooklyn, three nights at the Villa Roma in the Catskills, two nights at the Hampton Inn, Watertown, Thousand Islands and three nights at the Lake Placid Summit Hotel, plus car hire. 

For more information, see iloveny.com and visittheusa.co.uk.

It’s not just the terrain which is super-sized. The cuisine is, too.

Twice we leave restaurants with doggy bags whose contents prove equally enjoyable for breakfast. By far our most original activity is bobsleighing. Professionals steer our wheeled-sled down a section of the actual Olympic course.

We whiz so fast that G-force (not to mention the sled) rattles our bones as we take hairpin bends at 55 mph.

The children love every second and fight over who should take first place on the podium at the end.

Norwegian Air believes that New York state is such a draw that it’s introduced low-fare direct flights from the UK to Stewart International Airport (60 miles north of Manhattan) — so British holidaymakers can bypass the Big Apple altogether if they wish.

Indeed, we think that New York state is every bit as exhilarating as its most famous city. 



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