Two possibilities I don’t think have been mentioned.
The Strong Museum in Rochester.
Genesee Country Village in Mumford.
The Museum of the Earth just outside Ithaca.
For you outdoors types, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the 220-acre Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary.
Nevin Welcome Center - Cornell Botanic Gardens
Or just walk Ithaca Commons, four blocks of little shops, restaurants and galleries. It’s not the treasure it used to be - high prices killed the really funky shops - but it’s not like the other attractions mentioned.
BTW, the flight museum mentioned above is probably the The Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport. Basically one giant room stuffed with Curtiss’s airplanes and motorcycles from the early days. He was the biggest name in American aviation after the Wrights. And he was the inspiration for the original Tom Swift.
Hammondsport at the base of lake Keuka is a cute stop. Antiques etc.
CW
Also, outdoors-wise, there is Panama Rocks, where you can climb between, on top of, and through and across, house-sized boulders made of quartz conglomerate. There are even some really tiny caves and things that feel like slot canyons. If you’ve ever Seen Rock City in Tennessee, it’s like that except you’re allowed to explore on your own.
There are other places like it in SW New York and SE PA, but the only ones that are approaching the greatness of Panama Rocks is Rock City in Olean, and Bear Caves in Allegany State Park, but I slightly prefer Panama Rocks to both, and Bear Caves requires a mile+ long hike to get to.
Done that before, that’s sometimes on the Fall trip route since we gotta cross the Hudson somewhere.
We’ve been to both the Curtis (P-40) Museum & Wings of Eagles (in Horseheads, NY); both are in Finger Lakes region; or did you have another one in mind?
Could be a day trip if the weather doesn’t cooperate; only an hour away.
Adirondacks is a Fall trip; never managed to make it there but it’s on the list. We need a non-flyable Sat morning to make it.
Two adults. Definitely no winery/brewery trail. Not big drinkers, logistics of not driving, etc. If we wanted to drink, we’d bring it with us to Letchworth & just stay there.
Like I said in the OP, if the water cooperates & is high enough, it’s paddling in Pine Creek so definitely outdoor stuff.
Pretty sure it was the Curtis we went to. We really liked the Corning Museum/factory. They have live internships going on with artists blowing glass right in front of you. Some of them are the winners from the TV series “Blown Away”. Letchworth was nice, but it was raining while we were there, which didn’t lend itself well to photography.
OK. I’ll keep it to the parameters: traveling southeast towards New Jersey from east of the Rochester area. I won’t send you due east on the Thruway or into the Adirondacks or so far east towards the Hudson Valley that you have to turn southwest to head towards Jersey.
Ironically, I recently picked up a book called “111 Things in the Finger Lakes You Must Not Miss”, but it mostly focuses on relatively obscure locations and historical sites. I doubt you want to go out of your way to see the World’s Largest Pancake Skillet in Penn Yan.
I’m not going to go into exhaustive details on the Finger Lakes, although I did in a thread a few years ago.
I’ll start with Seneca Falls, a small town on the Seneca-Cayuga Canal. Seneca Falls is known for two things: Hosting the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention and being the inspiration for the town of Bedford Falls in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life. As such, it contains Women’s Rights National Historic Park. As with any historical National Park Service site, be sure to take the park ranger tour. Seneca Falls also is home to the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Home and the National Women’s Hall of Fame as well as the It’s A Wonderful Life Museum. Just up the road is the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.
I currently work with a guy who used to be a glass blower there. He has a small home studio & offered to teach me how to blow glass but he now has a newborn.
Oooh, interesting! MustseeMustseeMustsee! 
They do a IaWL festival in the Fall; it’s on our calendar.
Probably not. But if you do happen to be coming through Penn Yan on a Saturday morning June to midOctober: stop by the farmers’ market and say hi.
Next is Ithaca, the quintessential college town. Two colleges actually: Cornell University and Ithaca College. Ithaca is the one place in the Finger Lakes that is less crowded in the summer. Ithaca has a lot of things to see and do, more than someone could see in one day, but it really doesn’t have a must-see attraction.
Ithaca is Gorges is the tourism slogan, and there are certainly plenty of waterfalls and gorges in the Ithaca area. The big three are the state parks: Taughannock, Buttermilk Falls, and Robert H. Treman. They all have waterfalls and lots of hiking in gorges. They also have swimming under the falls. IMHO the expansive Cornell Botanical Gardens are worth the trip, even if you stick to the gardens near the Visitor Center. Also on the Cornell Campus is the I.M Pei-designed Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. On the other side of Ithaca is the Paleontology Research Institute’s Museum of the Earth.
The large, covered Ithaca Farmer’s Market is right on the lake and a lake cruise boat stops at the pier there. Agri-tourism is big in the Finger Lakes and there are farms, dairies and cheesemakers outside Ithaca. Ithaca also has a lot of artists, artisans, and crafters and you can dee their works either in downtown galleries and co-ops or at their studios or workshops. My book recommended Gourdlandia, home of an artist that grows gourds and then crafts items with them.
Downtown is built around the Ithaca Commons pedestrian mall and the surrounding blocks. You’ve got the important-to-culinary-history Moosewood Restaurant. For a town of its size, Ithaca probably has the best dining scene between Syracuse and the Hudson Valley. I mean, it has Ethiopian, Tibetan and Venezuelan Restaurants (among others), which you would be hard pressed to find in a city five times Ithaca’s size. Two breweries, a winery, and a winery/distillery within the city. Also an arthouse cinema.
I see @ bmoak1 has already put the correct spelling of Taughannock out there, but there is no swimming at Taughannock. I’d second the Botanical Gardens at Cornell. Depending on the timing of your visit, the rhododendrons are spectacular, but the curated flower gardens a great, too.
On your way down from the north-west part of NY, perhaps stop by Montezuma bird refuge.
Tappahannock is in Va., I think. Our son and his fiance live in Ithaca, so we’ve been to Taughannock a couple of times.
It’s too early for swimming season to be open at any of the parks. I think you can swim at Taughannock, but the swimming area is in the lake and not by the falls.
I mentioned Montezuma up in my Seneca Falls post, as it’s a few miles further east.
Next up I’ll suggest the villages of Chittenango and Cazenovia, east of the Finger Lakes. Chittenango is on NYS Rt-5 and Cazenovia is on NYS Rt-20, but they are separated by about 9 miles north-to-south on NYS-13, a winding road along Chittenango Creek, with Chittenango Falls State Park at the halfway point.
Chittenango is the birthplace of L. Frank Baum and it doesn’t let you forget it. Yellow brick sidewalks and the two-day Oz-Stravaganza festival in a few weeks. All Things Oz, the Baum/Oz museum, is open all year around and IMHO is one of the best small-town narrow-focus museums I’ve been to. Chittenango is on the Erie Canal and the Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum is a cut above other canal museums and it actually has a canal boat. However, outside of that, Chittenango is not a particularly attractive town.
Cazenovia is both a small college town (although Cazenovia College closed down about two years ago) and a lake town (Cazenovia Lake, with a lakefront park with a swimming area and a scenic spot parking area along the south shore). Cazenovia is larger, more populous, and more picturesque than its neighbor to the north, with a walkable and interesting downtown.
The two main attractions are 1) the Lorenzo Mansion, an 1807 Federal-style mansion of the local big kahuna family. Knowledgeable guided tours of the mansion. The outbuildings , composed formal gardens, and massive lawn facing the lake are free. 2). the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park is a few miles outside of town. It’s an outdoor sculpture museum with 4 miles of trails. A spur of the North Country Trail runs through the park and you can hike down to the town.
Caz is the best small-town dining destination in the area. You’ve got the fancy Brewster Inn on the lake. You can eat haggis at the Brae Loch Inn. The basement tavern/restraurant at the Linklaen House Hotel is pretty good, plus you get free warm popovers with your meal. Meier’s Creek Brewing Company is just outside town and has a large outdoor seating area. The food there is good enough that I will bring non-drinkers there.
Going back to the Finger Lakes, I’ll suggest the towns of Auburn and Skaneateles, separated by about 5 miles on NYS Rt. 20.
Auburn is near the north edge of Owasco Lake, but is not on the lake as the north shore is kind of marshy. Unlike most Finger Lakes towns, Auburn is not very picturesque and is dominated by its large prison. The main reasons to go to Auburn are historical: The Harriet Tubman Home and the Seward House Museum (Yes, it’s the Seward’s Folly Seward). Auburn is also home of New Hope Mills, a local producer of quality pancake mixes and flours, and their store/cafe, which serves pancakes as big as your head, is worth a stop.
Skaneateles, the next village to the east, is, unlike Auburn, a picturesque lakeside village. There’s a big park right along the lake with a long pier and lake cruise boats. The town’s very prosperous and well-kept. Last time I was there for a day, there was a tack-and-bridle shop in town, which gives you a hint on how well-off the town is. It’s so picturesque that the town transforms into a costumed Dickens re-enactment during the Christmas season.
Lots of higher-end gift shops, boutiques, and specialty shops. Also very good restaurants ranging from the high end (The Krebs, Mirabeau End) to the casual (CNY institution Doug’s Fish Fry). However, other than the lake itself, the town has no attractions.
Next up is a likely must-see if you like anitqueing and a pass if you don’t.
Heading further east along NYS Rt-20 from Cazenovia, you’ll run into Bouckville and Madison. Not much in those towns, but a two mile stretch of Rout2 20 is lined with about 30 antique dealers and multi-vendor spaces. Madison-Bouckville Antique Week in August fills the fields around town with 2,000 vendors and is too big to see in a day. Just before you hit the antique stores, you’ll see Ray Brothers BBQ, which I think is the best barbecue joint in CNY east of Syracuse.
How much of the Erie Canal is navigable - even if by canoe or kayak? Larger craft? Are parts filled in? Are parts worth seeing (from the land)?
I’m pretty sure that the entire former Erie Canal (later the New York State Barge Canal, and now part of the New York State Canal System) is navigable - they were bringing stuff down it when I was a grad student living alongside it. I’ve canoed sections of the canal.
The canal has been re-routed since its days as the Erie Canal. t no longer goes through downtown Rochester. You can still see some of the old locks that have been bypassed (there’s one behind the Wegman’s on Monroe Avenue).
Yep, you can still take canals and boat from the Hudson River to Lake Erie during the boating system. You have to go through the locks at various places.
The canal has been rerouted in several places, most prominently in Central New York, where the canal system is rerouted to Lake Oneida and picks up at the other end of the lake.
I mentioned Chittenango above as a town on the canal with a museum, but that is on the old canal route. It’s still on the water and is part of the NYS Old Erie Canal State Historic Park, which runs about 30 miles along the old canal route. No motorboats, but most of it is navigable by canoe or kayak.