Rochester NY and surrounding area

The Genesee River and the Erie Canal both have walks and good food. Take a boat ride on the canal.

If you enjoy bicycling - there are some great trails in that area.
Also the Finger Lakes are close by - lots of wineries and pretty little towns to explore.

I'm from Rochester and the Finger Lakes area. Letchworth State Park is nearby and is a beautiful park to explore. SE of Rochester are the Finger Lakes. Lots of very good wineries around Seneca Lake, some on Keuka or in the hills above. It's a beautiful area. Some good hiking near Naples, which is a nice little town with two wineries and several nice restaurants south of Canandaigua. Artizanns is a great store on Main St. with artwork and craftwork of many types from local artists. Downtown Rochester will most likely have a fireworks display on the 4th.

Hamlin Beach State Park is also nearby if you just want to relax on the beach or do some bike riding. But Letchworth or Watkins Glen are great places to explore!

If you like amusement parks and roller coasters, SeaBreeze is a neat little family-owned park near Rochester. In particular, they have a fabulous wooden carousel with a rather eventful history, and an original, unique, and very fun bobsled ride. Their wooden roller coaster is also among the oldest operating in the nation.

There are several nice museums in Rochester, too, if your tastes run that way.

If you have an iron stomach, you may want to check out a "garbage plate," a regional specialty, at Nick Tahou's or one of its successor restaurants. Don't expect fine dining. Most traditional probably would be either hamburgers, cheesburgers, or hots with mac salad and home fries and all the optional toppings.

The George Eastman museum (as in the house of the founder of Kodak Film), within a ~2 hr drive is Niagara Falls with lot's of history along the way, the Colonial Belle-Erie Canal Tour (in Fairport, NY) and Sam Patch Erie Canal Tours (in Pittsford, NY), as other's said - the Finger Lakes region has so much to do (wineries, breweries, nice lakes, hiking, biking, small town shopping and eating ... yum). Back to Rochester - Susan B Anthony house, Strong Museum ... lot's more but I just can't think of them at the moment.

Charter fishing on Lake Ontario.

Just went last week for my first time and caught my first salmon. I think the 4 of us brought home over 100 pounds of filets. (ok, maybe that my big fish story! We each had 3 gallon zip-lock bags of filets, anyway!)

We got a boat out of Olcott.