Top Reasons to Go to Pennsylvania Dutch Country

Amish country life: Experience a traditional way of life that continues despite the intrusion of the modern world.

Lancaster's Central Market: Visit the nation's oldest continuously operating farmers' market, which dates to the 1730s.

Plenty in store: Shop till you drop in Adamstown, a small town with three major markets—Renninger's, Stoudt's Black Angus, and Shupp's Grove—selling all manner of antiques, collectibles, and coins.

Gettysburg Battlefield: This sacred ground offers a stirring history lesson about the U.S. Civil War. The new Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center is worth a visit in itself, with state-of-the-art exhibits and the Gettysburg Cyclorama, an 1884 painting of Pickett's Charge, which if unfurled would be longer than a football field.

Sweet times: You can't go wrong with a visit to a place inspired and built by chocolate—Hershey—site of a grand hotel, famed amusement park, and other attractions. And in the humid summer months, cool down with some ice cream while learning how it’s made at the Turkey Hill Experience.