5 NY Road Trips: Step Into A Kaleidoscope — Or A Sitcom At The Roxbury

NEW YORK — If you’re planning to tool around New York in your car this summer, can you say you gave your road trip planning your all if you don’t at least stop by The Roxbury in the Catskill Mountains?

Here’s why: “Imagine if Alice in Wonderland married Willy Wonka and set up residence in Oz,” the themed boutique hotel says on its website.

If that’s not your jam, check out four other classic New York road trips below. But first, a little more about the wacky world waiting inside The Roxbury.

The Roxbury isn’t a single property, but two — the original motel with 28 themed rooms in the small town by the same name and The Roxbury at Stratton Falls, which includes a spectacularly renovated 1848 Italianate mansion and eight cozy cottages.

Favorite film, comic and book characters are invited along for the beloved Catskills boutique properties.

“If you do not at least smile (and hopefully sometimes gasp) when you open the door to your room, then we have not done our job,” the owners of The Roxbury wrote on the hotel’s website. “We want you to feel that immediacy of emotion that seeing a great film or play can produce. Only instead of just watching the production, we want to provide you with the ability to be IN the production. To live the fantasy.”

Themed rooms and their inspiration include 1960s sitcom-inspired rooms like Samantha’s Cloud (“Bewitched”). Genie’s Bottle Suite (“I Dream of Jeannie”) and George’s Spacepad (“The Jetsons”).

The Roxbury at Stratton Falls, set against a 50-foot waterfall, has several rooms in the historic mansion, and five standalone properties. Themed rooms include one called The Ghost and Mrs. Hicks, a play on the “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” first a film and later a television show. The inspiration for the room, though, is the friendly and congenial ghost of a 13-year-old girl who once lived on the property. Mrs. Hicks, the wife in the couple who built the mansion, is said to have had a close relationship with the ghost.

There’s no shortage of things to do in the area. Roxbury is located about 155 miles from New York City via I-87N and NY-28W.

All The Pretty Colors

Take a glimpse inside the world’s largest kaleidoscope, the Kaatskill Kaleidoscope, on this road trip to other small hamlet of Mount Tremper.

The psychedelic masterpiece at the Emerson Resort, created by artist Isaac Abrams, was the brainchild of developer Dean Gitter. The kaleidoscope is actually a silo from the Riseley Flats Farms that measures 60 feet tall and 37½ feet in diameter.

“The Kaleidoscope is a visual and sound experience for all ages within the silo and viewed from the bottom up,” according to the website. “Through tapered mirrors, the Kaleidoscope images are transformed into fractal figures and the storytelling begins.”

The kaleidoscope is complimentary for guests at the adjacent upscale Emerson Resort & Spa. The kaleidoscope is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday through Friday.

There are plenty of hiking and other outdoor activities in the Mount Tremper area. Mount Tremper is located about 115 miles north of New York City via I-87N.

Hike With Llamas And Alpacas

If you want a hike with a twist, head to Hyde Park and take a hike with a llama or alpaca at Clover Brooke Farm, set on 25 acres of bucolic land in the Hudson Valley. You’ll have to plan ahead. Tickets must be purchased in advance, and hikers under age 16 must be accompanied by an adult.

The tour goes through gentle pastures, paddocks and past a stocked bass pond. Selfies are encouraged with the alpacas and llamas, which the farm says are “very socialized” and friendly.

Hyde Park is a great place to get lost for a weekend, especially for history buffs. Both the Franklin D. Roosevelt Home and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum are in Hyde Park. Another historic spot is the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, a stunning example of a Gilded Age country home.

Hyde Park is located about 95 miles north of New York City via Taconic State Parkway.

Chill Out In Cazenovia

You may feel as if you’ve dropped into a Norman Rockwell painting in Cazenovia, a central New York town established in 1793 and known for its historic yet cool and modern vibe.

A walk through the National Register of Historic Places-listed Albany Street Historic District is like stepping back to the 19th Century with well-preserved businesses and residences in the Greek Revival, Italianate, Neoclassical architectural styles.

Road trippers will find boutique shopping, interesting local eats, a farmers market every Saturday during warm-weather months, and wineries, cideries and breweries. There are plenty of other things to do in Cazenovia and greater Madison County, including museums, farm tours and recreational pursuits.

Lorenzo House, completed in 1808, was the home of the town’s founder, John Lincklen, who came to central New York as a representative of the Holland Land Co. Lorenzo House has a stunning view of Lake Cazenovia. Lorenzo House, given to the state of New York in 1868, hosted many important visitors, including President Grover Cleveland.

If you go, don’t miss Chittenango Falls State Park. The centerpiece is a 167-foot waterfall, created by glacial sculpting over 400 million-year-old bedrock. The park is rich with biodiversity, with an interesting variety of plants and wildlife found along the trail.

Cazenovia is about 260 miles northwest of New York City via I-80W and I-81N.

Take In A Show At Glimmerglass

The Glimmerglass, one of New York’s most beloved opera houses, graces the shores of Otsego Lake just north of Cooperstown. The Glimmerglass Festival, the summer opera and music theater, opens July 22 with “The Pirates of Penzance” and with the schedule continuing well into August.

Glimmerglass State Park overlooks Otsego Lake, the “Glimmerglass” of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. An uphill trail through the first offers a spectacular view of the lake. The Beaver Pond and Woodland trails are particularly picturesque with a variety of wildflowers, shrubs, ferns and mosses.

The park is home to Hyde Hall Mansion and the Hyde Hall Covered Bridge are within the park. The bridge, built in 1825, is not only the oldest existing covered bridge in New York State, but in the United States. It was restored in 1967 by the State of New York and placed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 1998.

Cooperstown is also home to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Doubleday Field, the birthplace of baseball, as well as the Farmers’ Museum, the Fenimore Art Museum.

Cooperstown is about 200 miles northwest of New York City via via I-87N,

Patch’s road trip recommendations in 2023 included these trips:

1. Get soaking wet at Niagara Falls.
2. Breathe deeply in the Finger Lakes region
3. Drive the length of Long Island.
4. Take a museum trip worth more than a grain of salt.
5. Peace out in Woodstock.

• Read more: 5 NY Road Trips When You Need To Escape The City And Breath