Recent Posts

Categories

General - All Topics
Family Fun
- Culinary
- Farm Fresh
- Wine & Brew
- Camping
- Hiking
- Fishing
- Birding & Nature
- Boat Tours
- Erie Canal
- Kayaking & Canoeing
- White Water
- Waterfalls
- Rail Biking
- Museums
- Golfing
- Lighthouses
- Casinos & Resorts
- Horse Racing
- Handicapped Accessible
Photography
Holidays
- Fall Fun
Winter Sports
- Skiing
- Snowmobiling
- Ice Skating
Locations - Thousand Islands
- Adirondacks
- Finger Lakes
- Catskills
- Capitol-Saratoga Region
- Central NY
- Western New York
-Chautauqua-Allegany
- Hudson Valley

Download as PDF

Go Family Fun This Fall: Pick a Pumpkin, Sip on Cider, Get Lost in a Corn Maze, More

posted by Teresa Farrell at 2018-10-28 14:05:00

The leaves have changed, the air is crisp, and fall is officially in full swing. With Halloween around the corner, there’s still time to enjoy the many activities this season has to offer—from hayrides and corn mazes and fall festivals to pumpkin patches and more. From one end of Upstate New York to the other, you’ll find  everything from family-friendly activities like pumpkin picking and petting zoos to haunted hayrides and wine-and beer-centric activities geared toward the grown-up crowd. Either way you’ll certainly find something do to that’s suited for you during these golden weeks of fall.

 
Many of the apple orchards around Upstate New York have plenty of fall fun and activities going on, besides just apple picking, and as a bonus, many of them have special fall festivals and events happening now as well.  In Central New York, you can visit Beak and Skiff Apple Orchards in Lafayette or Fly Creek Cider Mill and Orchard, near Cooperstown; you can also enjoy the Critz Farms Fall Harvest Celebration which takes place at the Cazenovia orchard each fall weekend until the end of October. All three offer family fun suited for kids, but also make their own well-known wines and hard ciders for adults to enjoy, too.

 
A little further north, along the shores of Lake Ontario, visit Behling Orchards for favorite family-friendly fall activities.  And if you haven’t wound your way through a corn maze yet, you can find one at a farm or festival or go bigger by visiting a place like the Great Adirondack Corn Maze or the Heroic Corn Maze, both in the Adirondacks. Meanwhile, in the Capital Region, you can enjoy family-friendly fun like pumpkin picking and hayrides at Altamont Orchards or indulge in a more grown-up good time at stops like Nine Pin Cider Works and Brookview Station Winery and Joe Daddy’s Hard Cider.

 
In the Finger Lakes, enjoy unlimited wagon and cow train rides, along with multiple corn mazes and plenty of kid-friendly activities, during Fall on the Farm events at Long Acre Farm. Or take the kids for a day of fun at Wickham Farms; they’ll love the train rides, farm animals, and mini golf course along with the fall staples like corn mazes, hay rides and cider donuts. A little further down the road, in Western New York, enjoy the classic fall favorites along with pony rides and a petting zoo at Becker Farms’ Pumpkin Fiesta or stop by the Harvest Festival at Darien Lake, where theme park rides meet fall activities that promise a great time for all. Make it an overnight if you want to wind your way through the adult-suited, challenging mazes at Moonlight Mazes in Macedon.
 

Whatever you do, just make sure you don’t miss out on the last few weeks of fall--- after all, this is the time to enjoy good times in the sunshine before the snow starts to fly! Luckily, from hay rides to corn mazes to sampling cider of every kind, there are plenty of ways to savor every last drop of the season the season before it’s gone.

 
PHOTO CREDITS
Scarecrow pumpkins photo credit Rob Bertholf 
Cider mill photo credit Amanda Slater
Pumpkin farm photo credit Jim Bauer
Tractor hayride photo credit James Emery
Indian Corn photo credit _overanalyzer
Jack o Lantern tower photo credit John Drake

 

---