Top Things to Do in Ithaca

Keuka Lake is the only Y-shaped Finger Lake, and its two branches create unusually varied microclimates that allow local winemakers to experiment with different exposures and soil profiles on the same estate. This guided tour delivers visitors to a curated selection of producers whose pours span from crisp dry Riesling with a streak of slate and white peach to barrel-aged red blends that surprise visitors expecting the region to stop at whites. The 4.8-star average from sixty reviewers reflects a consistently well-organized experience where the guides bring genuine knowledge of both the wines and the geology that shapes them.

Watkins Glen sits at the southern tip of Seneca Lake, roughly 35 miles northwest of Ithaca, and while the state park gorge is the destination most visitors know, this self-paced scavenger hunt reframes the surrounding village itself as the subject. The clues lead through streets and historic buildings that carry a surprisingly dramatic backstory: Watkins Glen hosted international Grand Prix racing in the 1940s, and the town's commercial and civic history bears traces of that particular ambition. The 4.5-star rating and accessible price point make it a natural addition to a wine-country day trip.

This full-day private tour combines the cultural and architectural depth of an Ithaca walking tour with extended visits to wine producers in the surrounding Finger Lakes countryside, creating a day that moves between reading a landscape in stone and reading it in fermented grape juice. The 5.0-star rating from early reviewers suggests the combination works exactly as intended: the historical grounding of the city makes the afternoon wine country feel earned rather than touristic, and the contrast between gorge-carved urban topography and lake-valley vineyard rows is part of the experience itself.

Taughannock Falls State Park

Taughannock Falls drops 215 feet in a single free fall over an overhanging limestone rim, landing in a deep plunge pool surrounded by shale walls that rise 400 feet on either side. Standing at the base viewpoint, you feel cool mist on your face before the falls come fully into view, and the roar builds slowly as you walk the gorge trail through hemlock forest. The 4.8-star rating from over ten thousand visitors is not accidental: this is one of the great waterfall sites in the eastern United States, and Taughannock's canyon scale gives it a grandeur that photographs consistently understate.

Buttermilk Falls State Park

Buttermilk Falls State Park sits at the southern edge of Ithaca's city limits, close enough that Cornell students use it for afternoon escapes and locals arrive on weekday evenings after work. The cascade is a long series of drops and slides over layered shale, generating continuous mist and the smell of wet rock and cool moss along the trail. At the base, a natural swimming hole has drawn Ithacans for generations, the cold clear water is a specific sensory reward after the climb, and the sound of the falls is audible throughout.

Robert H. Treman State Park

Robert H. Treman State Park is the most varied of the three major gorge parks near Ithaca, offering a full loop trail that passes twelve named waterfalls and descends through dramatically different geological layers between the upper and lower sections. The centerpiece is Lucifer Falls, a 115-foot cascade visible from a suspension bridge hung over the gorge, standing there, with the falls audible in every direction and the hemlock canopy filtering green light from above, is one of Ithaca's most specific and lasting pleasures. An 1839 grist mill at the lower park, repurposed as a picnic shelter, gives the landscape a human anchor that the purely geological parks lack.

Ithaca Farmers Market

The Ithaca Farmers Market occupies a pavilion at Steamboat Landing on the southwestern shore of Cayuga Lake, and the setting, open water stretching north, the forested hillside rising to the south, the covered stalls filled with the smell of wood-fired sourdough and sizzling savory crepes, is as specific to Ithaca as anything else in the city. The market is strictly producer-only, meaning every vendor grew, raised, fermented, or made what they are selling, and that constraint produces a quality and authenticity that most urban markets cannot match. Saturday is the flagship day, with a full vendor list and live music drifting across the pavilion from mid-morning onward.