9 Ideal The Poconos Destinations for a 3-Day Weekend

The Asa Packer Mansion at the top of Packer Hill in Jim Thorpe has not been modernized since the family closed the house in 1912. Same paintings on the walls. Same china in the dining room. A Christmas tree stand still sits on the parlor table from the family's last Christmas there, one hundred and thirteen years ago. The Poconos run partly on this kind of accidental preservation: towns that got too small to renovate and survived as a result, alongside neighboring towns that built brand-new indoor waterparks and ski lifts that work in summer. Nine destinations follow, each handling a three-day weekend differently.

Jim Thorpe

Population around 4,400. Originally two towns: Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk. Merged and renamed in 1954 after a strange deal with the widow of Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe. She traded his remains to the town in exchange for adopting his name. He is interred in a granite memorial on the edge of town, his Oklahoma family has never stopped trying to get him back, and the courts have repeatedly ruled in the town's favor. Stone Row on Race Street is a stretch of identical row houses built in 1848 for engineers of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, now restored as boutiques and cafés. The Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway runs vintage diesel coaches on a 16-mile round-trip through Lehigh Gorge State Park. Peak fall-foliage trains sell out months ahead. Asa Packer Mansion, built 1861 for the founder of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Lehigh University, runs guided tours of an Italianate Victorian interior untouched since the family closed the house in 1912. The same paintings on the walls. The same china in the dining room. The same Christmas-tree stand in the parlor where they left it. Whitewater rafting season runs May into October with dam-release weekends for the bigger water.

Tannersville

Anchored by Camelback Resort. Year-round operation by design. Ski slopes in winter, Camelbeach outdoor waterpark in summer. Camelback Mountain Adventures runs the only mountain coaster in Pennsylvania, plus zip lines, a ropes course, and UTVs for people whose mid-life crisis needs a steering wheel. Aquatopia, the indoor waterpark, covers 125,000 square feet under a transparent roof. Runs at 84 degrees year-round. Thirteen slides. Seven pools. Storm Chaser, the resort's signature ride, is billed as the world's longest indoor water coaster, and yes you do come out of it wondering what just happened. The Crossings Premium Outlets a few minutes down Route 715 handle rainy-day shopping when the lift lines get long. Trails End Pub and Grille up on the mountainside makes the case for a long lunch with a view back across the Pocono Plateau. The whole place is engineered to use weather as an excuse rather than a reason to leave.

Delaware Water Gap

The Delaware River cut a gap through Kittatinny Mountain over the course of a few million years, and the result is one of the most dramatic east-coast geological features that nobody outside the Northeast talks about. Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area covers about 70,000 acres of it. Over 100 miles of hiking trails. Twenty-seven miles of the Appalachian Trail. The Mount Tammany Red Dot Trail runs 3.5 miles to a viewpoint on the New Jersey side that puts the whole gap under you. Raymondskill Falls in the northern section drops about 150 feet over three tiers. Pennsylvania's tallest waterfall by most counts, and a quarter-mile from the parking area, which is the rare combination. Dingmans Falls, second-tallest at 130 feet, sits 15 minutes south on a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk. In Delaware Water Gap village itself, the 1882 Antoine Dutot Museum traces the town's origins as Dutotsburg. The Church of the Mountain Hostel has run since 1976 and is one of the oldest hiker-focused hostels on the entire Appalachian Trail. Thru-hikers in town between Easter and October are easy to spot. they smell like they smell. Buy them a beer if you have the chance. They will tell you stories you didn't know you needed.

Lake Harmony

A 925-acre glacial lake inside Big Boulder and Jack Frost ski-resort country, surrounded by cabins in second growth oak and hemlock. Open to motorboats, kayaks, paddleboards, and pontoon rentals in summer. The water is deep, clear, and cold. glacial lakes generally are, and Lake Harmony hasn't warmed up much since the last ice age. Multiple lakefront cabin operations rent weekend stays directly on the water. The H2Oooohh! Indoor Waterpark at Split Rock Resort runs year-round, useful in shoulder seasons when the lake stays too cold for swimming and your kids still need to get the energy out. Captain Joe's Fishing Charters books trout and bass guided trips for all skill levels. yes, he will bait your hook if you ask, and no, he won't make fun of you for asking. The Kidder Hike and Bike Trail runs about five miles between the lake and the small Lake Harmony downtown. Piggy's Restaurant on Lake Harmony Road handles diner-style breakfast for the boaters at 6:30 a.m., the kind of place where you order pancakes and they come the size of a hubcap. Bring cash. They like cash.

Stroudsburg

Monroe County seat. About 5,500 residents. The most-developed downtown in the Pocono region, which is to say it has more than one block worth walking. Main Street's mural project has installed around two dozen large outdoor murals on building facades since 2014, with a free self-guided walking-tour map at the downtown information kiosk. a 20-minute loop that turns the main drag into an open-air gallery. The Sherman Theater at 524 Main, a 1920s vaudeville house, hosts national-touring music and comedy acts year-round. Kettle Creek Environmental Education Center on Bartonsville Avenue runs free nature programs on 192 acres for kids whose parents need 90 minutes to themselves. The 1795 Stroud Mansion, built by town founder Jacob Stroud, now houses the Monroe County Historical Association as a museum. the kind of small-town museum where a docent will follow you around explaining who is in which portrait, and it turns out to be the best part. Walk Main Street on a Saturday in October. The whole town leaves the doors open until the cold sends everyone inside.

East Stroudsburg

University town. About 9,800 residents plus the East Stroudsburg University student body, which means the bars are louder and the breakfast lines are longer during the school year. Across Brodhead Creek from Stroudsburg, with its own separate downtown that feels distinct enough that locals identify with one or the other. The Schisler Museum of Wildlife and Natural History on the university campus runs more than 130 mounted bird and mammal specimens across two floors. black bear, river otter, every owl species you can name and several you can't. Free to the public. The McMunn Planetarium on the same campus runs live star shows most Friday evenings during the academic year, also free, which is the kind of thing a university town does that a tourist town never would. Pocono TreeVentures in nearby Marshalls Creek runs aerial-obstacle, rope, and zip-line courses through the forest canopy. The Dansbury Depot, an 1864 railroad station rebuilt after a 2017 fire that nearly destroyed it, operates as a restaurant inside the original station building. Eating dinner under the original station rafters is one of the better Pocono experiences that doesn't advertise itself.

Lehighton

Across the Lehigh River from Jim Thorpe. Population around 5,400. Often skipped as the lesser cousin of its more famous neighbor, which is exactly why it's worth a stop. The Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor runs 165 miles from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol along the historic Lehigh and Delaware canal towpaths. The 26-mile section between Jim Thorpe and Lehighton is the most-cycled stretch, mostly flat along the river, with rentals from Pocono Biking and Lehighton Outdoor Center. Coast all the way to Lehighton, eat a sandwich, and shuttle back. Yenser's Tree Farm just outside town runs a sunflower festival each August with photo paths through about five acres of blooming sunflowers. bring a hat, sunscreen, and a camera that can handle the light. The Lehighton Halloween Parade in October is one of the larger Halloween events in northeastern Pennsylvania, the kind of small-town parade where the entire population shows up on Main Street and nobody leaves until the last fire truck has rolled past with its candy bucket empty.

Hawley

Wayne County resort town. Lake Wallenpaupack, the largest lake in Pennsylvania at 5,700 acres, sits immediately east. built in 1926 as a hydroelectric reservoir and now mostly used by people who own boats and people who rent boats from people who own boats. Wallenpaupack Scenic Boat Tours runs 50-minute pontoon cruises out of the Hawley Silk Mill dock. The Silk Mill itself is the town's anchor: an 1880 stone-built former silk-thread manufacturer that was the largest of its kind in the country at its peak, redeveloped since 2010 into a destination retail and dining complex with a brewery, candle shop, art galleries, and the Cocoon Coffeehouse on the ground floor. Walk in and you can smell the old stone and the new coffee at the same time, which is the kind of detail that turns a renovation into a place. The Settlers Inn at Bingham Park, opened in 1927 and restored as a country inn, runs a regional farm-to-table restaurant with much of the produce coming from the inn's own gardens. eat dinner there in August and the tomato on your plate was on the vine that morning. Woodloch Resort just east of town has run as an all-inclusive multi-generation family resort since 1958. Three generations of the same family arrive every July. Cousins meet cousins they only see at Woodloch.

Milford

Pike County seat at the northern end of the Delaware Water Gap. About 1,100 residents in the downtown borough. Grey Towers is the reason you make the drive. Designed in 1884 by Richard Morris Hunt. yes, the architect who built the Vanderbilts' Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. and completed in 1886 as the family home of Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and two-term governor of Pennsylvania. The 102-acre estate is now a National Historic Site managed by the Forest Service. Guided mansion tours, free grounds access, and the Finger Bowl outdoor dining table. a sunken stone basin filled with water that the Pinchots used as a kind of floating-platter dinner table, passing food in small wooden boats. Yes, really. Roosevelt sat there. So can you. The Milford Readers and Writers Festival in September brings authors and panel sessions across the downtown over a long weekend. The Black Bear Film Festival in October draws independent filmmakers to the Milford Theatre. The Hotel Fauchere on Broad Street, a restored 1880 boutique hotel, anchors the dining scene with its Bar Louis bistro. Stay one night. Plan to come back.

Three Different Three-Day Weekends

Jim Thorpe and Milford trade on intact historic downtowns and 19th-century mansions. Tannersville and Lake Harmony run the resort waterparks and ski hills. Delaware Water Gap delivers the actual national-park acreage and the Appalachian Trail crossing. Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg, Lehighton, and Hawley sit in between, each offering a different angle on Pocono small-town life. Pick one as a base or string two together with a half-day's drive between them. Nine destinations, nine different weekends.