Our Travels to the Finger Lakes, New York USA

We have been RVing for several years in our 25-foot fifth wheel trailer. However, this spring, due to rising gas prices, we wanted to find someplace close to home for a month of camping.

We decided to check out the Finger Lakes in New York and found a campground on the Internet on Conesus Lake, which is one of the smaller lakes. We live in St. Catharines, so we crossed the border at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge and took 104E, then country roads from there. It’s a pleasant three-hour drive.

Our campground turned out to be not quite what we expected. The lake was across the road and the campsites were up a very steep hill. We measured on the GPS – 250 feet! Quite a climb! Good for the cardio, I guess! But our site was large and we were able to put up our dining tent.

The area is beautiful. Conesus is a small lake with houses with pretty gardens close to the water. We walked most days. If it was very hot, we parked the truck down by the office to avoid climbing ‘the hill’!

There are over 1000 waterfalls in the Finger Lakes. We took a day trip to Ithaca and saw Buttermilk Falls, which looks like lace coming down, and Taughannock Falls. We passed through Amish country where the farmers were spraying their fields with the help of a team of horses.

There is a pretty town just northwest of Conesus, called Avon, where we attended an accordion festival in the local park. We saw a few waterfalls there as well.

There was a package of brochures given to us when we checked in at the campground.

Each county has a very informative brochure and we found them to be very helpful. We attended a fabulous concert in Rochester called Beethoven Rocks, with an orchestra and 200-voice choir and admission was only $16 each.

On July 3^rd they had a fireworks display all around the lake. Everyone had a bonfire going and they put red flares up on every property by the water and at 9:30 pm everyone lit the flares. There was a “ring of fire” around the lake. It was awesome.

For anyone wishing a relaxing holiday, we highly recommend this area.

By: Jack and Eleanor Hofland