8 Serene Towns in The Poconos for a Weekend Retreat
The Pocono Mountains hold the most serene weekend retreats in its smaller towns, where lake water and ridge air do most of the work. Each town keeps the noise low. Hawley wraps around an 1880 silk mill that now holds shops and a coffee house. Jim Thorpe highlights its railroad-baron mansions up on Packer Hill. Delaware Water Gap runs the country's oldest continuously operating jazz club inside a former 19th-century hotel. These eight Pocono towns each take a different approach to a quiet weekend.
Jim Thorpe
The Mauch Chunk Opera House in historic downtown Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Jim Thorpe keeps two railroad-baron mansions side by side on Packer Hill. The Asa Packer Mansion went up in 1861 in Italianate villa style, designed by Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan for the Lehigh Valley Railroad magnate and Lehigh University founder. Packer's daughter, Mary Packer Cummings, willed the 18-room house to the town in 1912, and almost every furnishing remains original. Next door stands the Harry Packer Mansion, built in 1874 as Asa's wedding gift to his son. Disney Imagineers later used its Second Empire exterior as the model for the Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World. The Harry Packer now runs as an inn, so a guest can book a room inside the blueprint for the ride.
The town fills the rest of a weekend without much effort. Mauch Chunk Lake Park handles biking, fishing, and a quiet shoreline. The Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway runs a 70-minute round trip into Lehigh Gorge State Park, and the foliage peaks in mid-October. The town took its current name in 1954. After the Olympic athlete died, his widow offered his name to the merged boroughs of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk in return for a burial site, and his grave stands on the edge of town.
Stroudsburg
The Sherman Theater has run live shows on Stroudsburg's Main Street since 1929. It opened with a Laurel and Hardy bill and has stayed in the live-entertainment business ever since. Touring acts, comedy nights, and indie film screenings rotate through the calendar all year. A few blocks away, the Andrei Art Gallery and the Gamut Art Gallery show work by regional artists, and the Pocono Cinema and Cultural Center screens arthouse films out of a 1920s building.
The surrounding country fills out the day. Kettle Creek Wildlife Sanctuary covers 166 acres of woods and wetlands with easy walking trails. Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm runs 19th-century cooking demonstrations and basket-weaving programs on a working farm. The Penn Stroud Hotel anchors downtown in a building from 1833, raised by Stroud Hollinshead, grandson of town founder Jacob Stroud. Pocono Brewery Company pours house beers a few blocks over and runs a Saturday food-truck lineup.
Milford
Grey Towers crowns Milford, the 1886 French chateau-style home of Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot was the first chief of the US Forest Service and a two-term governor of Pennsylvania. The estate covers 102 acres of gardens and walking paths, and the Forest Service runs the interpretive program. The town dates to 1796 and meets the Delaware River at the New Jersey line, with kayaking, hiking, and quiet drives through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area close by.
The historic district holds the rest. Golden Fish Art Gallery and the Artisan Exchange both rotate work by regional artists. The Columns Museum fills a 1904 neoclassical mansion and keeps the blood-stained Abraham Lincoln flag that cushioned the president's head at Ford's Theatre. The Hotel Fauchère anchors downtown with a fine-dining program that traces back to its 1880s Swiss-immigrant founder, Louis Fauchère.
Hawley
The Hawley Silk Mill, built in 1880, is considered the largest laid bluestone building in the world. Workers raised it in High Victorian Gothic style with two-foot-thick bluestone walls. It spun silk into the 1940s and ran as a textile mill until 1956. Today it holds Art on the Edge, the Looking Glass Art Gallery, Cocoon Coffee House, and a satellite campus of Lackawanna College. Next door, the Ledges Hotel fills the former J.S. O'Connor American Rich Cut Glass Factory from 1890, and its rooms overlook the falls on Wallenpaupack Creek where it feeds the Lackawaxen River.
The water runs the other half of a Hawley weekend. The town caps the northern tip of Lake Wallenpaupack, a 5,700-acre reservoir built in 1926 for hydroelectric power and now the second-largest lake contained entirely in Pennsylvania. The lake runs 13 miles long with 52 miles of shoreline. The Riverwalk Trail near Bingham Park gives walkers an easy in-town option.
Tannersville
Camelback Mountain Resort operates above Tannersville year-round. Winter brings 39 ski trails plus the Camelback Snowtubing park and its 42 lanes, one of the largest snow tubing parks in the country. Summer flips the hill to hiking, zip-lining, mountain biking, and Camelbeach Outdoor Waterpark with two acres of pools and slides. Camelback Lodge keeps guests close to the lifts.
Big Pocono State Park covers the quieter side of the same mountain. Its 1,306 acres climb Camelback, and the summit view reaches into New Jersey and New York on a clear day. The Summit House restaurant up top makes the natural lunch stop. The South Trail and Indian Trail give hikers an easier line than the resort terrain.
East Stroudsburg
East Stroudsburg University runs the Schisler Museum and McMunn Planetarium, with rotating astronomy exhibits and weekend planetarium films. Trackside Station Grill occupies the historic Dansbury Depot, so dinner comes with railroad architecture and the occasional Norfolk Southern freight rolling past. Gregory's Pond Park keeps a one-mile trail loop and pond fishing right in town. Mt. Nebo Park, just outside the borough, covers 137 acres of preserve with quiet trails and steady wildlife sightings.
The bigger scenery waits a short drive out. The Pocono Mountain Villas resort offers studio and villa rooms, horseback riding through Bushkill Riding Stables, and a round at Pocono Hills Golf Course. Bushkill Falls, the "Niagara of Pennsylvania," lies about 20 minutes north. Eight waterfalls connect across four trail networks there.
Delaware Water Gap
The Deer Head Inn is the country's oldest continuously running jazz club. It has hosted live jazz here since 1953. The inn rents rooms upstairs and serves a full menu downstairs, and the calendar mixes regional players with touring names. Across town, the Castle Inn dates to 1906 and survives from the village's grand resort-hotel era. It no longer takes overnight guests, but it runs guided tours and serves as a stop on the seasonal Pocono Historic Trolley Tour.
The outdoors carries the rest of the visit. The Appalachian Trail crosses the area on its run between Georgia and Maine, and the Mount Tammany Trail climbs steeply to a 1,527-foot summit over the gap. Kayaking and rafting outfitters work the Delaware River from spring through fall. The surrounding Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area covers about 70,000 acres of forest and waterfalls.
Honesdale
Honesdale is where the first steam locomotive ran on commercial rails in the United States. On August 8, 1829, the Stourbridge Lion ran on the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company tracks here. A working replica stands at the Wayne County Historical Society, housed in the former 1860 D&H Canal Company headquarters on Main Street. The same society keeps exhibits on the canal, which once carried anthracite coal 108 miles east toward the Hudson River.
The Stourbridge Line Train still runs scenic excursions, including a Honesdale-to-Hawley round trip through the northern Poconos. Kayakers work the Lackawaxen River, and Gibbons Park atop Irving Cliff catches the sunrise. Main Street holds galleries, shops, and stops like Here and Now Brewing Company. Hotel Wayne, first built in 1827 and rebuilt in 1895, offers suites and a fine-dining restaurant in the center of town. The Dorflinger-Suydam Sanctuary in nearby White Mills runs hiking trails and a glass museum dedicated to the Christian Dorflinger cut-glass works that once supplied the White House.
A Weekend In The Mountains
The Poconos pack a lot of range into a short drive. Jim Thorpe and Honesdale carry the railroad and industrial-fortune history. Tannersville and Hawley pair the lake with the mountain. Stroudsburg and Milford run the small-town downtown experience. Delaware Water Gap holds the wildest scenery and the jazz. Pick one town for a weekend or string two together, and the rest of the range keeps for the next trip.
