Niagara, Lucille Ball & the Corning Museum of Glass

The oldest state park in the United States, established in 1885 to protect public access to the falls after private developers had fenced off the entire American shore. The park's Prospect Point overlook provides the closest standing position to the American Falls (118 feet tall, 1,060 feet wide); the Cave of the Winds walk at the base of Bridal Veil Falls is the most visceral approach to any waterfall in North America.

A museum at the former Customs House at the edge of the Niagara River, where freedom seekers crossed from slavery to Canada — the center documents the geography of the Underground Railroad's northern terminus and the 100,000 people who made the crossing. The Niagara River crossing was the last and most critical step of the freedom journey for the majority of people who escaped via the Ohio route.

A Niagara Falls institution since 1927, serving the Italian American cooking of the original restaurant family — red-sauce pasta, chicken piccata, and tiramisu in a dining room that has been feeding Niagara tourists and locals for nearly a century.

The oldest continuously occupied military site in North America — French soldiers built the first fort here in 1726 at the mouth of the Niagara River, and the French Castle (1726), the Bake House (1762), and the South Redoubt (1770s) are all original. The site changed hands from French to British to American and has been continuously occupied by military forces for nearly 300 years.

The Erie Canal's most spectacular engineering — the original five combined locks lifting the canal 60 feet over the Niagara Escarpment, with an underground boat tour through the original 1825 power tunnel cut through solid Niagara dolomite. The locks and tunnel are preserved as they were when the canal opened in 1825.

A Lockport brewpub named for the Erie Canal — house-brewed ales alongside elevated pub food (smash burgers, wings, flatbreads) in a converted historic building steps from the famous flight of locks. A natural follow-up to the Lockport Cave boat ride and the most-recommended dinner spot in the area.

Lucille Ball was born in Jamestown in 1911 and the museum in her birthplace collects over 2,000 artifacts from her career — original costumes from I Love Lucy, scripts, correspondence, and the props that defined one of the most watched television programs in history. The adjacent Desilu Studios exhibit documents the production company she and Desi Arnaz built into one of Hollywood's most influential operations.

The Jamestown birthplace of the man who invented the modern field guide — Roger Tory Peterson's 1934 'A Field Guide to the Birds' transformed amateur naturalism and began the contemporary conservation movement. The institute's collection of Peterson's original illustrations, his binoculars, and his extensive field notes are displayed in a building designed by Robert Venturi.

A Jamestown restaurant in a renovated industrial building — the New York lake fish, the local beef, and the Chautauqua County produce-focused menu are executed with the care of a city restaurant in an environment that feels genuinely like upstate New York.

A year-round public market in the Jamestown downtown occupying the original 1913 city market building — local farms, small-batch preserves, and the Chautauqua County food culture that has sustained the area since the 19th-century agricultural cooperative movement.

The actual house in Celoron on Chautauqua Lake where Lucille Ball grew up, now a small memorial park with her childhood home preserved and a collection of I Love Lucy memorabilia in the adjacent building. The neighborhood and the lake view are exactly as they were when Ball was a child here.

A family-run Peruvian kitchen in Fredonia — lomo saltado, ceviche, aji de gallina, and other Lima classics that outclass everything else in the Chautauqua County dining scene. A rare find in Lake Erie wine country; tiny space that fills quickly, so arrive early or call ahead.

The largest glass museum in the world — 50,000 glass objects spanning 3,500 years of glassmaking, from Egyptian core-formed vessels to Dale Chihuly's contemporary sculptures, in a 285,000-square-foot building on the Chemung River. The Hot Glass Show demonstrates glassblowing techniques from ancient to contemporary; the Make Your Own Glass experience is available by reservation.

The Corning downtown was rebuilt after a 1972 flood destroyed the historic commercial district — the rebuilding project preserved the original street grid and produced one of the most coherent Victorian-era main streets in New York State. The Rockwell Museum of Western Art, the Steuben Factory store, and the independent galleries along Market Street make this a concentrated cultural block.

A Corning institution since 1946 — the Italian American cooking of Corning's original glass-worker immigrant community, served in a red-sauce tradition that is earnest rather than nostalgic. The baked ziti and the osso buco are the right orders.

A serious collection of American Western art in the heart of upstate New York — the Corning Foundation amassed 3,000 paintings, bronzes, and photographs of the 19th-century American West, including major Bierstadt and Remington works. The unexpected quality of the Rockwell is one of the best surprises in New York State museum culture.