The Western Catskills offers just what you’d expect – an authentic experience of rural life! We’re two and a half hours from Manhattan, an hour from Albany, and four from Boston or Rochester. Visitors find the area unspoiled by overcrowded tourist destinations and filled with friendly smiles. We offer things like art openings where you actually meet the artists, classes like Farmer for a Day, music and theatrical performances by major artists, and historic walking tours. The Catskill Mountain Club offers volunteer led hikes and workshops throughout the Catskill Forest Preserve and on other state lands. Memorial through Columbus weekend, the Pepacton Reservoir is open to the public for non-motorized boating – canoe, kayak, skulls, and small sailboats.
Hanford Mills Museum, listed on the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places, is one of only a handful of operating water powered mills in the country. The historic site features mill tours demonstrating the sawmill and other mill machines, the John Hanford Farmhouse (which recreates home life in the 1920s), and other historic buildings. Visitors can explore the nature and rail trails that wind through the Museums 70-acre site and are welcome to picnic beside the millpond. The Delaware and Ulster is an excursion train that combines railroad nostalgia with scenic rides through New Yorks legendary Catskill Mountains. Whether you’re looking for a quaint country inn, a bed & breakfast nestled on a tree-lined Main Street, a fishing resort or family resort, a convenient motel, or summer campground, you’ll find the full array of lodging options in the Western Catskills of Delaware County.