5 Things to do at Watkins Glen State Park For First Timers

One of the most beautiful nature places you’ll find in all of New York State is Watkins Glen State Park and if you’re planning to go there for the first time, let me share what you need to know beforehand and what else you can see around the area (Finger Lakes).

10 quick bits of info about Watkins Glen State Park (before you go):

1) What is Watkins Glen State Park?

It’s a 1-2 mile gorge that’s classified as a park. It contains a main hiking trail (with steps) through the gorge that has many waterfalls, extremely scenic views and it’s one of the most popular spots to visit in New York State.

2) Where is Watkins Glen State Park located?

Watkins Glen State Park is located near Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Here is a map listing of it:

3) Is it easy to hike through Watkins Glen State Park?

For most people yes.

Unless you have knee or other similar problems, you shouldn’t have an issue hiking through Watkins Glen State Park. The entire 1-2 mile “hike” is on a paved road and there’s steps in the incline areas. This park’s path was shaped by people to help them explore this place easily.

4) How long does it take to hike through Watkins Glen?

Depending on your speed, it could be under an hour if you’re fast and over, if you want to take your time.

A parallel path to the main trail is available once you finish exploring Watkins Glen where you can easily walk back down to the main parking area and most people elect to hike up the main trail, and walk down the parallel trail.

5) How many waterfalls are in Watkins Glen State Park?

19. At least by the official site.

6) Is Watkins Glen State Park really as beautiful as the photos show?

Yes! There’s very places I’ve ever visited where the photos of the spot were as good if not better than when you’re there in person. Watkins Glen is one of those places where the photos aren’t just stunning (you would think they were edited), but when you’re actually there, it’s even more stunning and this is something you’ll just have to see for yourself!

7) When is the best time to visit Watkins Glen State Park?

Spring, summer and fall seasons would be my suggestion. During the spring and summer season, this area is very green, and during the fall seasons, the autumn colors come out and further decorate this park’s beauty.

8) Can you climb into the gorge (out of the main trail)?

I honestly did not see any signs saying you couldn’t, so I’m hesitantly saying yes, but be sure to look for signs/warnings/restrictions if you go.

9) How much does it cost to enter the park?

Entering it is free, but if you choose to park in the official parking lot, there might be a fee that’s around $10 per car.

10) What else is there around the park to see?

Well this is where we finally get to the main subject:

My accidental visit to Watkins Glen State Park explained:

I never had any plans to visit Watkins Glen. But it accidentally happened while I was finishing up one of my favorite road trips through the Appalachian Mountains.

On that trip, we began all the way down in Georgia State and worked our way up to New York State, seeing the most amazing sights we could along the way, including:

• The Blue Ridge Mountains.
• Great Smokey Mountain National Park.
• Daniel Boone National Forest.
• Seneca Rocks.

And this was all before we reached Finger Lakes in NY and when we finally got to the State, the option to visit Finger Lakes came up, and being that none of us have ever been there, and I’d heard so much about it, we decided to plot it in the GPS and go!

And while we were traveling to our first destination, I noticed a gigantic gorge with a lot of cars parked next to it.

And if you know read my article on how I find hikes near me, this was an instant indicator that something popular was there. I looked at the GPS and saw that we had just passed Watkins Glen State Park!

And years prior to being here, I’d seen photo after photo of this place, but without ever researching where it was. Yet we got lucky and literally passed right by it. We decided to visit the other spots we planned on first, and then on the way back check out Watkins Glen! And this is where I bring you to:

The 5 things to do at (or around) Watkins Glen State Park:

1) 100% start with the main Watkins Glen hiking trail.

No picture, however good can match the beauty you’ll see in this park until you enter it yourself.

Try to visit it early or towards an off season time (September and up) because you’ll have less people there. The main trail is easy, extremely scenic to hike and unforgettable.

One of the most unforgettable spots in this park is Rainbow Falls (right):

 2) Check out the town near Watkins Glen which is Schuyler County.

It’s small, but very pretty, has many restaurants and places to tour and enjoy the scenery.

3) Drive around Seneca Lake (west to east or east to west).

I recommend you save this as the last drive because this lake is HUGE and you’ll likely take about 1-2 hours to go all the way around it. It’s even bigger than Lake George (Another popular area in New York, just east of Finger Lakes).

And don’t forget that Finger Lakes as a region is 5 lakes next to each other (hence the finger name). Many of these lakes have some of the most beautiful waterfalls in all of New York State.

4) Be sure to check out Hector Falls near Watkins Glen:

It’s about a 15 minute drive from the State Park, and is located east of Seneca Lake.

It’s a waterfall you may even miss because it’s right off the road, but it’s huge and there’s a hike down to it off the road that you can take (and I recommend you do).

5) Be sure to see the famous Taughannock Falls (the tallest in the region).

There’s a large park in Finger Lakes with many trails, waterfalls, campground and so on, but this particular spot is one of the most popular for people to see.

Here is a picture of both Hector Falls and Taughannock Falls:

How to plan your trip to Watkins Glen Park efficiently.

The above order of things to do at this park isn’t a rule.

You can totally mix it up, but I would plan to cover these 5 spots in a way where stopping at one location makes it easy to get to the other and so forth until you cover all 5.

I would even say that out of these 5 destinations, Watkins Glen might be worth visiting last, if you can hike it before sunset (it closes then).

But if you’re visiting this place for a few days, believe me, there are so many things to do around Finger Lakes that even a week here isn’t enough to see everything, so you’ll be booked with all the places you can see, but these 5 will probably be some of the most beautiful.

In our case, while our trip mainly took us through the Finger Lakes area, only for one day though, which I will cover in a later article, we decided to plan our day such that we would finish it up and make sure to visit this spot last.

And after we were done, not only were we glad we checked it out, but it was easily the most beautiful spot we saw on our 6 day road trip and besides the areas I listed earlier that we saw before hand.

Here is what we saw after our visit to Finger Lakes and Watkins Glen State Park:

• Lake George.
• Adirondack Mountains.
• Ausable Chasm.
• Sand Bar State Park.
• Smugglers Notch Park.

But all of these locations, although highly recommended and incredibly scenic, were still second, even in the best cases to Watkins Glen State Park’s beauty!

And if you are of the same opinion (or different) I’d love to know your thoughts after you have visited Watkins Glen State Park (or already have).