Planning a New Paltz Day Trip? Here Are Some Spots You Won’t Want to Miss

New Paltz is a small college town located about an hour and a half outside of New York City. The town, which houses SUNY New Paltz, is a great destination for a day trip to get out of the city and feel like you’re immersed in nature and small-town life for a day. If you’re planning a New Paltz day trip or even a longer trip, here are some must-do activities for your time in the town.

Getting Out of the City

When it comes to getting out of New York City for your New Paltz day trip, you have a few options available to you. The easiest option, most of the time, is driving yourself out of the city. If you have your own function car, that’s a perfect option, but if your car needs something like car windshield repair or you just don’t have one, there are public transport options as well.

The first, and the most direct, is to take a bus from Port Authority in the city and directly into the heart of New Paltz. This bus ride will take about an hour and a half depending on traffic, but be wary if you have a strict schedule: this bus often runs behind or even has canceled and overbooked trips. This is also the most economical option, though, costing around $50 round trip. New Paltz is a very walkable town, so you won’t have to worry about not having a car with you during your visit.

The other option is to take a train from New York City to Poughkeepsie, the nearest city to New Paltz, and then get driven to New Paltz. The train ride is about an hour and a half, and it takes about 20 minutes to get to New Paltz from there. However, this train runs much more on schedule and is not as controlled by the traffic as the bus is. If you’re okay with spending slightly more money for comfort, the train is a good option for you.

Choosing Accommodations If You Decide to Stay Overnight

If you’re planning a weekend trip and not a New Paltz day trip, you’ll have to think about your accommodations for your stay in New Paltz. You have essentially two options if you don’t have any friends or family living in the town that you can stay with: a hotel or an Air BnB. There are a few hotels in New Paltz, and none of them are central to the town. This means that you’ll need to either walk a little while to get to the hustle and bustle of the town or have a car with you that you can drive into town. Air BnBs are sprinkled all over the town because of how popular of a destination New Paltz is to visit. There are Air BnBs in the center of town, which means you can walk most places, and there are Air BnBs a little more out of the way that are easier to get to with a car.

When you’re considering your options, make sure to pay attention to the amenities that each location offers. For example, maybe having access to a hotel phone system is important to you because your cell phone has a tendency to drop calls. Maybe you want to make sure that your accommodations not only have air conditioning, but that you will have access to the controls for the exact temperature of your room. Take any perks (or lack thereof) into account when you’re choosing your accommodations, and your New Paltz trip will be off to a great start before you even leave the city limits.

The Campus

One of the main things to visit when you’re on a New Paltz day trip is the campus. It’s a very small, walkable campus, and going from one side to the other only takes about 20 minutes. In Old Main Quad, you can see the original buildings of the campus, including Old Main, Old Library, Shango Hall, and College Hall. All of these buildings surround a gorgeous quad where you’ll often find students and townsfolk playing dogs, tossing frisbees, and even tightrope walking a few feet off the ground between trees when the weather is nice out. If you move towards the Student Union Building you’ll see the Atrium, which is a large glass structure created to mimic the Louvre museum in Paris.

Behind the Student Union Building, you can see the creek that runs through campus, leading between two ponds, which is referred to by the students as “The Gunk,” a rip off of the nickname given to the Shawangunk Mountains, which can be seen from campus. You might even see the campus’ favorite geese removal solution: the school dog, Auggie. He is a rare sight, but only because he’s very good at his job.

On campus there is also the Dorsky Museum, which houses different works as different showcases and exhibitions cycle through. Make sure to check out what will be on display during your trip and stop in to see some great works of art.

The Rail Trail

If you’re escaping the city to experience more nature and get away from the hustle and bustle of city life, a must-have on your New Paltz day trip itinerary is a walk on the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail. The Rail Trail was started in 1991, 14 years after the railroads on that line had stopped functioning. The tracks were largely removed, leaving paths cut out where the tracks once were. With some work clearing the paths fully and a bit of root pruning, the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail came to life. Today, the trail is over 22 miles long and shows off the beautiful landscape of the Hudson Valley. If you liked the movie A Quiet Place, you can actually walk about two and a half miles North East down the Rail Trail and find the bridge used in the first movie. If you look closely at the ground, you can see that there’s actually a little bit of sand left from the shoot, even years later.

Historic Huguenot Street

While you’re on your way back to town after visit the bridge from A Quiet Place, you’ll see a glimpse of the Historic Huguenot Street Museum. The street, which is the oldest continuously-inhabited road in America, housed a group of French Protestants who were fleeing violence in their home country in the late 1600s. Today, the museum keeps alive the history of those settlers by giving tours and doing special events regarding the history of the community on Huguenot Street. During special events, such as around Halloween, they have interactive events where actors will dress up as historical figures and tell their “own” stories. The museum is not always open, so make sure to check out the website before you add it to your New Paltz day trip itinerary. When the museum is closed, you can still enjoy walking the grounds using their virtual walking tour, which is available for free on their site.

Waterstreet Market

Waterstreet Market is a great place to stop in after a scenic walk on the rail trail. The market is a set of shops and restaurants set just on the edge of town before you go over the Wallkill River towards the Shawangunk mountains. The windows on many of the shops face the mountains, making even a casual shopping experience into a beautiful scenic moment. There are some great coffee shops and a few bars in the market as well, so if you’re over 21 you can enjoy a nice drink with a beautiful view.

Main Street Shopping

When you walk down New Paltz’s main street and the small side streets off of it, like Church Street, you will encounter quite a few small businesses, including a record store, multiple book stores, clothing boutiques, and even a fine jewelry shop. Even if you are only window shopping, these stores offer a lot of interesting finds to keep you entertained during your New Paltz day trip.

Grabbing a Bite

One of the best things about New Paltz is the number of dining options you have in such a concentrated area. From Vietnamese to American classics to Mexican food, there are options for whatever you may want to eat on Main Street or only a block over. This may be because the Culinary Insitute of America is located just across the river in Hyde Park, or it may be because college students love off-campus dining, but whatever the cause, there are many options. Main Street Bistro is a breakfast and brunch classic, and it always has a line out the door on weekends. If you want Mexican, there is Mexicali Blue or Mexican Kitchen to choose from. When it comes to Asian cuisine, you have tons of options. In short, whatever you may be in the mood for, there’s likely a great restaurant ready to serve whatever you’re craving to you.

As a note, many of these restaurants are also vegetarian and vegan friendly since New Paltz has many vegetarian and vegan people in its population. There are even a few completely vegan restaurants, like Karma Road and the Commissary.

Nightlife

Another great thing about New Paltz is the nightlife. If you’re just planning a New Paltz day trip, you may miss out on this, unless you hit up a happy hour or take a late-night bus back to the city. There are only a handful of bars in the town, but they all have their own unique energy that is easy to appreciate.

If you’re interested in hanging out with a group of friends outdoors around a fire drinking craft beers, Huckleberry is a great option for you. They have a great outdoor lighting installation that will keep things illuminated by more than the firelight. This bar also has an indoor area upstairs where they have communal board games that you can grab and play with friends.

If you want to see where the townies of New Paltz go for drinks, you can visit Snug Harbor Bar and Grill on Main Street. The wood flooring has seen better days, but the live music and cheap drinks can’t be beaten. Local bands will often play shows on the small stage at the front of the bar, so check out the schedule to see who will be up there when you’re in town.

If you want to go to a bar with fun music where you can dance, you should check out PandG’s, Murphy’s, or Mcgillicuddy’s. All three of these bars are full-service restaurants during the day, but at night a dance floor is cleared and DJ equipment is brought out. If you’re in town during the week, there are various discount nights at all of these bars, like two-for-one drinks at Murphy’s on Tuesdays and “Towers” at PandG’s on Thursday, when you get a 100 oz tower of beer and a handful of cups to share the drink with your friends.

When is the Best Time to Visit?

While New Paltz is beautiful year-round, there are definitely better and worse times to plan for your New Paltz day trip. Any time that the college’s semester is starting or ending, for example, will be a very hectic time between parents dropping students off and apartment moving for the older students or graduates. Any other big family events for the school, like graduation in May or family weekend in the fall, are also probably not the best times to visit.

Probably the best, and the most popular, time to visit is during the autumn when the leaves are changing. Because New Paltz is surrounded by the mountains and many, many trees, the autumns in New Paltz are absolutely stunning, and they are a sight that anyone would thoroughly enjoy seeing.

If you’re trying to figure out a good day trip from New York City, look no further than New Paltz. A New Paltz day trip will be able to provide you with an escape from the hustle and bustle of the city without having to travel too far.

Are you planning a trip to New Paltz? What are you interested in seeing while you’re in town?