8 Most Walkable Town Centers In The Poconos
A full day in the Poconos can happen within just a few blocks. Whether you're catching a train at the Jim Thorpe station or filling a bag at the Monroe Farmers Market in Stroudsburg, the car can stay parked. The same goes for touring Grey Towers above Milford or standing beside the Stourbridge Lion in Honesdale. These are eight of the most walkable town centers in the Poconos. They stretch from the Lehigh in Carbon County up along the Delaware.
Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe is built into a bend of the Lehigh, with the train station on Hazard Square at the bottom and the rest of the town climbing the hillside above it. Broadway is home to the business blocks, and Stone Row's rowhouses stand above them on Race Street. The Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway leaves from the station on Susquehanna Street for a run up the gorge and back along the river. Up Packer Hill, the Asa Packer Mansion opens for docent-led tours through rooms that still hold the family's own furniture and belongings. Back on West Broadway, the Old Jail Museum runs guided tours of the cell block and the basement cells used for solitary confinement, ending at cell 17 and the handprint on its wall. A few doors along, the Mauch Chunk Opera House books music, comedy and dance most weekends of the year.
Lehighton
A few miles downriver from Jim Thorpe, Colonel Jacob Weiss Park sits at the center of downtown Lehighton and hosts the Lehighton Downtown Farmers Market. The outdoor amphitheater behind the borough hall was rebuilt with new lighting, sidewalks and seating and dedicated in 2021, and it hosts concerts and movies through the warm months. Nearby blocks feature an antique marketplace at Anthracite Vintage Mercantile and Auctions, an urban winery at Radical Wine Company, and a 1930s-style pub at Bonnie and Clyde. On the riverside, the Lehighton trailhead takes walkers and cyclists onto the D&L Trail, the old canal and railroad grade that runs 165 miles as the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor. The Lehighton Outdoor Center rents bikes at mile 101 and runs shuttles upriver to Rockport and White Haven, so the ride back follows the Lehigh the whole way into town. Across the river in Weissport, the Hofford Mill has a coffee shop, the Gorge Eatery and electric bike rentals, and Beltzville State Park and its lake are a short drive east.
Delaware Water Gap
The Delaware cuts a notch through Kittatinny Ridge at the state line, and the borough of Delaware Water Gap sits at the foot of it. It's small enough that Main Street and Broad Street account for most of the town. The Appalachian Trail runs through the borough on its way north. From the Lake Lenape parking area at the edge of town, it climbs 1.8 miles to the top of Mount Minsi, which looks down on the river and across to New Jersey. On Main Street, the Deer Head Inn serves dinner with live jazz, and the borough calls it the longest-running jazz club in the country. Every September, the Celebration of the Arts brings two days of jazz to town, split between an outdoor main stage and the stage inside the Deer Head. Musicians founded the festival here in 1978, and it has run ever since. Also on Main Street, the Antoine Dutot Museum and Gallery fills an 1850 brick schoolhouse with local history and a working art gallery, with openings and artist talks from Memorial Day weekend into October. Down the block, the Church of the Mountain has run a hostel for Appalachian Trail hikers since 1976, with bunks, a shower and a Thursday potluck open to hikers and to anyone else in town. On Broad Street, Sango Kura pours house-made sake alongside Japanese pub food, and bills itself as the first and only sake brewery in Pennsylvania.
Stroudsburg
Downtown Stroudsburg runs the better part of a mile along Main Street, with historic buildings dating from the late 18th century through the early 20th century and shops, galleries and restaurants behind the old facades. Courthouse Square sits about halfway down, and the Monroe Farmers Market takes it over each week. It's a producer-only market that has been in town since 1979. The Sherman Theater originally opened on Main Street in 1929 as a vaudeville house and movie theater. It reopened in 2004 after a renovation, and now books concerts, comedy, family musicals and film screenings, with the smaller Sherman Showcase next door for local bands and newer acts. A few blocks up at Main and Ninth, the Stroud Mansion of 1795 houses the Monroe County Historical Association, which reopened in 2026 after an expansion that added a three-story heritage center with more exhibit space and a community room. At the edge of downtown, the Levee Loop Trail follows the levee built after the floods of the 1950s. Its 4.29 miles of path run along both banks of Brodhead Creek, linking parks, playing fields and the two downtowns on either side of the water.
East Stroudsburg
East Stroudsburg is Stroudsburg's twin across Brodhead Creek, a separate borough with its own downtown a few minutes' walk from the other one. Crystal Street is the heart of it, a stretch of locally owned shops, cafes and family restaurants sloping down towards the railroad tracks. The Historic Dansbury Depot sits at the bottom of the street, the old passenger station that now serves as a gathering place for community events and a farmers market. Trackside Station Grill and Bar shares the depot property, serving pub food beside the rails where passengers once waited for trains. A few minutes away on South Courtland Street, the Pocono Cinema and Cultural Center shows art house and first-run films as an independent nonprofit, with a party room and private screenings. Dansbury Park, off Day Street, is one of the trailheads for the Levee Loop. From there, the path follows Brodhead Creek and crosses to Stroudsburg on the other bank. East Stroudsburg University sits above the borough, and its students fill the downtown storefronts and sidewalks through the school year.
Milford
Milford stands on a bluff above the Delaware, laid out street by street in the 1790s by its founder, Judge John Biddis. The commercial blocks where Broad and Harford Streets cross are a National Register district today. The Columns Museum on Broad Street, run by the Pike County Historical Society, has the 36-star flag used to wrap Abraham Lincoln's head after he was shot at Ford's Theatre in 1865, still stained with his blood. Every September, the Milford Readers and Writers Festival brings authors to the Milford Theater, a block off Broad Street. Free panels and workshops run at the library and other venues around town over the same weekend. On the hill above the borough, Grey Towers National Historic Site runs hour-long guided tours through the first-floor rooms of Gifford Pinchot's mansion and several of its outdoor gardens. Pinchot founded the US Forest Service, which runs the house today. South of town, Milford Beach on the Delaware has river swimming, a boat launch and the northern end of the McDade Recreational Trail. The Raymondskill Creek Trail drops 0.3 miles into a hemlock ravine to two viewing platforms, one above the upper pool and cascade and one at the foot of the falls. The Park Service calls Raymondskill Falls the tallest waterfall in Pennsylvania.
Hawley
Much of Hawley was built from the bluestone quarried in the hills around it, and the stone shows up in buildings all over the middle of town. One of the most memorable examples of the bluestone architecture is the Hawley Silk Mill, a three-story building under a castellated roof, built in 1881 for a silk manufacturer. It now has Cocoon Coffeehouse, a perfect pitstop for a local roast and a homemade breakfast. It's also home to Hopping Eagle Brewing Company, boutiques, a florist, and a campus of Lackawanna College upstairs. On Keystone Street, the Ritz Company Playhouse has been staging community theater for more than 50 years in an old movie house. Bingham Park covers 11 acres off Main Avenue with tennis and pickleball courts, ball fields, a playground and the Ellingson Bandstand. From the park, the old canal towpath runs past the Settlers Inn and joins the Riverside Trail. That path follows the top of the dike above the Lackawaxen, with a fenced dog park along the way. Every December, the Downtown Hawley Partnership fills the streets for Winterfest, with a holiday parade and a craft and artisan market over the weekend. Lake Wallenpaupack starts a few minutes up the road from Main Avenue, with 5,700 acres of water and public boat launches as well as fishing.
Honesdale
Main Street runs beside the Lackawaxen through Honesdale, and the state has designated it a Keystone Communities Main Street. Halfway along it, between Main and Court Streets, Central Park serves as the town's public square. At its center stands the Wayne County Civil War Monument. It features a marble Union soldier at parade rest above bronze tablets naming the 353 county men who died in the war, and during the summer local musicians play in the park around him. The Wayne County Historical Society Museum fills the old Delaware and Hudson Canal Company headquarters on Main Street. Inside is a full-size replica of the Stourbridge Lion, which made the first locomotive run on a commercial track in the country in 1829, a few blocks from the museum. The Stourbridge Line excursion train still pulls out of the Honesdale station for rides up the Lackawaxen, with pumpkin patch and dinner runs through the fall. A few doors down Main Street, the Cooperage Project runs concerts, contra dances and open mics in a former barrel works, and hosts the farmers market indoors through the winter. A gravel path follows the river out of downtown, and the trails of Gibbons Memorial Park climb to the top of Irving Cliff for a view over the rooftops.
Park Once, Walk All Day
The Poconos are rich in history, nature and small-town American culture. You don't have to walk far to enjoy a little of each. Visiting these towns will leave you with lasting memories and larger-than-life experiences. The eight of them run in a line between the Lehigh and the Delaware, so fitting two into one trip is easy. Park once and let the day unfold on foot, with museums and theaters along the main streets and river paths at the end of them.
