Start from 38 curated places around Ithaca, NY, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Gola Osteria
A tucked-away Collegetown osteria that brings scratch-made Tuscan cooking to a city that has more than its share of good restaurants — housemade pasta, wood-fired preparations, and a list of Italian wines that rewards exploration. The intimate dining room draws a loyal mix of Cornell faculty, locals, and visitors who've done their homework.
MIX Kitchen and Bar
The Commons' most consistently celebrated table, where New American cooking meets bold global flavors — Thai-inflected curries alongside classic burgers and local farm produce, in a room that keeps pace with both a relaxed dinner and a lively night out. It sits at the top of most Ithaca restaurant rankings and earns the placement.
Trails & outdoors
Gorge Trail — Taughannock Falls
The signature hike of the Finger Lakes — a flat, easy 1.9-mile round-trip through a gorge that grows progressively more dramatic as the canyon walls rise to over 400 feet on either side, ending at the base of the 215-foot waterfall. The scale of the gorge walls in comparison to the waterfall's modest width is genuinely surprising.
Gorge Trail — Buttermilk Falls
A 0.65-mile climb through a cascade of ten waterfalls starting at the park entrance, rising 600 feet along Buttermilk Creek through layered shale formations carved over millennia. It's short enough for most visitors but strenuous enough to feel earned — the reward at the top is a quiet meadow above the gorge rim.
Things to do
State Theatre of Ithaca
A 1,600-seat restored 1928 movie palace on the Commons that serves as the city's primary music and performing arts venue, hosting touring acts, film screenings, and local productions in a room that was built to make every show feel like an occasion. The acoustics and intimacy make it one of the best mid-size venues in upstate New York.
Hangar Theatre
A professional regional theater operating in a converted 1932 aircraft hangar on the Cayuga waterfront, with a summer season of mainstage productions alongside a youth theater program that has produced working actors and directors. The industrial space — high ceilings, exposed structure — creates a theatrical environment that purpose-built venues can't replicate.
Landmarks & sights
Taughannock Falls State Park
Home to a 215-foot plunge waterfall — three stories taller than Niagara Falls — at the head of a steep glacial gorge on Cayuga Lake's western shore. The overlook platform at road level gives you the full waterfall view without hiking; the gorge trail to the base requires a flat half-mile walk through remarkable canyon walls.
Buttermilk Falls State Park
A compact state park on Ithaca's southern edge where the gorge trail passes ten distinct waterfalls in less than a mile, climbing 600 feet through layered shale and limestone carved by Buttermilk Creek. The park's proximity to downtown — just minutes from the Commons — makes it the easiest gorge experience in the area.