The Finger Lakes
We’ve compiled the best of the best in The Finger Lakes - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
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18 Recommendations
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1. Strong National Museum of Play
Play is taken seriously at the second-largest children's museum in the country, home to the world's largest collection of toys, dolls, and play-related artifacts and to the National Toy Hall of Fame. Within its 282,000-square-foot footprint are interactive exhibits like Reading Adventureland, where you follow a yellow-brick road into a pop-up book of life-size literary creations; Sesame Street (created in collaboration with Sesame Workshop); a pint-size market where kids run the store; and an indoor butterfly garden and aquarium. Also on display are some of dolls and dollhouses of museum founder Margaret Woodbury Strong (1897–1969), who collected some 17,000 dolls throughout her life.
1 Manhattan Sq., Rochester, New York, 14607, USA585-263--2700Sight Details
Rate Includes: $15 -
2. Abbott's Frozen Custard
Finish your day at Ontario Beach Park with a true Rochester treat: Abbott's Frozen Custard. You can spot this Rochester institution, opened in 1926, by the line on a hot afternoon. The custards—thicker and creamier than ice cream due to a slow-churning process—are made fresh daily in old-fashioned flavors ranging from chocolate almond to black cherry to butterscotch.
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3. ARTISANWorks
Inside this former cannon factory, nearly every inch of the more than 60,000-square-foot bohemian art-gallery-meets-studio-space is chockablock with art, much of it for sale. Some of the 500,000 pieces have a pedigree: Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Gordon Parks, though about 80% of the collection is local. The eclectic space also includes artist studios, a dinner theater, a courtyard, and a two-story firehouse with a real 1958 pumper truck. The rooftop sculpture garden gives you a view of the city skyline.
565 Blossom Rd., Rochester, New York, 14610, USA585-288--7170Sight Details
Rate Includes: $12, Closed Mon.--Thurs., Fri. and Sat. 11–6, Sun. noon–5 -
4. Charlotte Genesee Lighthouse Museum
The lighthouse stands about a mile south of Lake Ontario, giving you an idea of how the landscape has changed since the 40-foot-tall stone structure was erected in 1822. In the 1960s a group of local high school students saved the structure—the second-oldest American lighthouse on Lake Ontario—from rumored demolition.
70 Lighthouse St., Rochester, New York, 14612, USA585-621--6179Sight Details
Rate Includes: $5, Closed Mon.--Thurs. -
5. Genesee Country Village & Museum
This 750-acre living-history museum has 68 buildings that were moved from throughout the region to re-create 19th-century life in the Genesee Valley. The complex includes the John L. Wehle Gallery of Wildlife & Sporting Art. The 175-acre Genesee Country Nature Center, which has exhibits and 5 mi of interpreted hiking trails, is open all year. You may cross-country ski and snowshoe here. Mumford is 20 mi southwest of Rochester.
1410 Flint Hill Rd., Mumford, New York, 14511, USA585-538--6822Sight Details
Rate Includes: $18, Closed Mon.-- Tues. -
Recommended Fodor’s Video
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6. George Eastman Museum
The sprawling colonial-revival mansion, once the home of Eastman Kodak's founder, has been restored to its early-1900s appearance. The elephant head on the wall in the conservatory is an eye-catcher, and the rest of the house gives a glimpse into the life and times of the man who brought photography to the masses. Much of the second floor is used as gallery space. The grounds include a rock garden with scallop-shaped flower beds, a formal terrace garden with more than 90 types of perennials, a cutting garden, a lily pool, and a grape arbor. The International Museum of Photography and Film, connected to the mansion, has changing exhibits about the history of photography and film technology; the permanent collection includes tens of thousands of photos, books, and films as well as photographic equipment. Also here is the Dryden Theatre, which shows movies ($7) and hosts film festivals.
900 East Ave., Rochester, New York, 14607, USA585-327--4800Sight Details
Rate Includes: $15, Closed Mon. -
7. High Falls Center & Interpretive Museum
Stand on a bridge over the Genesee River, watch and listen to the High Falls cascading 96 feet, and feel the power that drove Rochester's flour mills in the 19th century. The Triphammer Forge, a reconstructed waterwheel, is one of the largest in the state. Frontier Field and Eastman Kodak world headquarters are across the street. The High Falls entertainment district has pubs, clubs, and restaurants, as well as frequent events in summer and a laser show every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
74 Browns Race, Rochester, New York, 14614, USA585-325--2030Sight Details
Rate Includes: Closed Mon.--Tues. -
8. High Falls Visitor Center
The High Falls Visitor Center has a museum, with interactive exhibits, that give an overview of Rochester history.
74 Browns Race, Rochester, New York, 14614, USA585-325--2030Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free -
9. Highland Park
Established in 1888, this was Rochester's first public park. Site of the hugely popular Lilac Festival, Highland Park has more than 500 varieties of lilacs. Walking paths crisscross the park and lead to a reservoir that provides an unobstructed view for miles to the south.
171 Reservoir Ave., Rochester, New York, 14620, USA585-753--7275Sight Details
Rate Includes: $3 -
10. Lamberton Conservatory
The Lamberton Conservatory, built in 1911, houses arid desert species and lush tropical vegetation. It's incredibly popular on snowy winter days.
171 Reservoir Ave., Rochester, New York, USA585-753--7270Sight Details
Rate Includes: $3, Daily 10–4 -
11. Memorial Art Gallery
More than 5,000 years of art is contained within the 14 exhibit rooms at this museum, opened in 1913. Egyptian coffins, medieval tapestries, impressionist paintings, European masters, and African carvings are on permanent display. The collection of American art is strong and regional artists are represented and compete in juried shows here.
500 University Ave., Rochester, New York, 14607, USA585-276--8900Sight Details
Rate Includes: $15, Closed Mon.--Tues., Wed.–Sun. 11–5, Thurs. 11–9. Tours Thurs. at 6:30, Fri. at 2, Sun. at 1. -
12. Mount Hope Cemetery
Formed by a glacier that left undulating terrain upon its retreat, the 196 rolling acres of this cemetery are as much a park as they are the final resting place for more than 370,000 people. Among the more famous laid to rest here are suffragist Susan B. Anthony and anti-slavery leader Frederick Douglass. The cemetery, dedicated in 1838, is one of the nation's oldest. Many headstones retain Victorian symbols such as the anchor, crown, obelisk, or sheaf of wheat. The city owns the cemetery, but a caretakers group called the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery offers tours.
1133 Mount Hope Ave., Rochester, New York, 14620, USA585-428-7999-cemeterySight Details
Rate Includes: Tour admission $5, Daily dawn–dusk. Tour May–Oct., Sat. at 1, Sun. at 2 and 2:30; mid-May–early Aug. Thurs. twilight tours at 7pm. -
13. Ontario Beach Park
The showcase of the Charlotte neighborhood, the restored park recalls its days as the "Coney Island of the North." The 1905 Dentzel Carousel ($1) has three rows of animals—pigs, giant rabbits, and giraffes as well as horses—and is one of only about six such Dentzel menagerie carousels still operating in the country. Free concerts are held on Wednesday nights in summer. To get here, take Lake Avenue all the way north until you reach Lake Ontario.
4650 Lake Ave., Rochester, New York, 14612, USA585-753--5887Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free, Daily 7am–11pm -
14. Rochester Museum & Science Center
Everyone in the family can play with hands-on exhibits that focus on science and technology and their impact on our daily lives, as well as some nature and local cultural-heritage exhibits. Highlights include Light Here/Light Now, an optics exhibit; the interactive Expedition Earth, which delves into how the region was formed; a Seneca Indian exhibit; and the Strasenburgh Planetarium, which presents astronomy and laser-light shows and large-format films about space and Earth.
657 East Ave., Rochester, New York, 14607, USA585-271--4320Sight Details
Rate Includes: $15, Mon.–Sat. 9–5, Sun. noon–5 -
15. Seabreeze Amusement Park
The Jack Rabbit, a wooden roller coaster built in 1920, is the most famous ride at this park on the Lake Ontario shore. Sampling all the water rides, the log flume, the carousel, the bumper cars, and the midway makes for a very full day.
4600 Culver Rd., Rochester, New York, 14622, USA585-323--1900Sight Details
Rate Includes: Ride and slide pass $34.99, Mid-June–early Sept., Sun.–Thurs. noon–10, Fri. and Sat. noon–11; late May–mid-June, call for days and hrs -
16. Seneca Park Zoo
Exhibits at this zoo along the Genesee River include Rocky Coasts, providing aboveground and underwater viewing of a polar bear, penguins, and sea lions; A Step Into Africa, a re-creation of Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater with African elephants and olive baboons; and a cougar exhibit in which you can crawl through a tunnel to see the cats up close. During your day in the wild, you might also spot Bornean orangutans, white rhinos, Arctic wolves, and meerkats, among other beasts.
2222 St. Paul St., Rochester, New York, 14621, USA585-336--7200Sight Details
Rate Includes: $12, Nov.–Mar., daily 10–4; Apr.–Oct., daily 10–5 -
17. Susan B. Anthony House
The west-side street where suffragist Susan B. Anthony lived from 1866 until her death in 1906 looks much like it did in her day. The tree out has been replaced by two smaller chestnuts, but many of the neighboring houses still look the same. You can tour the three-story redbrick Victorian and picture Anthony working to get women the right to vote. The visitor center next door was the home of a sister. A park one block north has a statue of Anthony and friend Frederick Douglass having tea.
17 Madison St., Rochester, New York, 14608, USA585-235--6124Sight Details
Rate Includes: $15, Closed Mon. -
18. Warner Castle
At the corner of Mt. Hope and Reservoir avenues, a block west of the Lamberton Conservatory, is the squat Warner Castle. Headquarters of the Rochester Civic Garden Center, it has art exhibits and educational materials about gardening.
5 Castle Park, USA585-473--5130Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free, Closed Fri.--Mon., Tues.–Thurs. 9–4
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