10 The Adirondack Mountains Towns Perfect For A Fresh Start
About 12,455 people across seven Adirondack counties now work from home, with no office to drive to. In Hamilton County, in the middle of the Adirondack Park, that's about one worker in six. Along Lake Champlain, in Essex County, it's one in ten.
Getting the house is the hard part. "It was a nightmare trying to find a place," one newcomer told the Adirondack Explorer, in a region of old housing stock and a rising tide of short-term rentals. After that, each of these ten towns has a door that's easy to find, whether it's a ski-season paycheck or a volunteer squad that needs one more pair of hands. Each one also comes with a winter long enough to settle whether the move was a good idea.
Old Forge
Old Forge is in the park's southwestern corner, and one way into town is a winter job. The Town of Webb runs McCauley Mountain, which has 633 feet of vertical, 21 trails and more than 100 days of skiing a year, and in past seasons the town has hired full- and part-time attendants, with applications taken at the town clerk's office on State Route 28. Snowmobile season opens with Snodeo on December 11 and 12, and Snofest, in early March, shows off the new sled models, all on an average of about 158 inches of snow a year. For someone on a seasonal paycheck, the housing numbers are far apart. Rent across Herkimer County averaged about $1,250 a month in September, by Zillow's count, while homes in the 13420 ZIP code sold for a median of about $570,000 over the three months through August, according to Redfin.
After the snow, McCauley's scenic chairlift runs between late June and mid-October, a ride of about ten minutes up to a picnic area and a nine-hole disc golf course. DiOrio's Supermarket has been family-owned since 1976, and the Town of Webb Health Center, managed by MVHS of Utica, sees patients on weekdays. The Strand Theatre, a restored Art Deco cinema with four screens, keeps a free film and camera museum, and on Monday and Wednesday evenings, between 6 and 8, the town's free pickleball sessions are a good place to learn some names before the snow comes back.
Speculator
A typical home in the village of Speculator, east of Old Forge in Hamilton County, was worth about $297,500 in September 2026, according to Zillow, and the village counted 406 people at the 2020 census, 82 more than ten years earlier. Daily errands go through Charlie Johns, a 12,000-square-foot five-and-dime that is also the main year-round grocery and general store. Along with the deli and the bakery, it carries hardware and camping supplies and has a walk-in beer cooler, so a box of nails and a six-pack can come home in one trip. The public beach on the north side of Lake Pleasant, along Route 30, is free. Oak Mountain has had skiers on its slopes since 1948, with 22 runs today, and it holds pond skimming in the spring. The 0.8-mile hike to Auger Falls is short enough for an evening after work, and the Speculator Lions Club, which draws members from Speculator, Lake Pleasant, Arietta and Wells, welcomes new ones.
North Creek
Farther east, in Warren County, the North Creek Ski Bowl is within walking distance of downtown North Creek. The Town of Johnsburg owns the Bowl and keeps it open all year, and Gore Mountain's Music at the Bowl concerts were held there on six Friday evenings this summer, between 5:30 and 9. Mountain bikers ride its cross-country trails, and Scenic Skyrides go up the mountain on the new Hudson Chair.
Gore Mountain, owned by the state and run by the Olympic Regional Development Authority, hires for the winter. In the 2025-26 posting, hospitality jobs there, filled through Sodexo Live, paid between $15.50 and $19.50 an hour, depending on experience, for December through March. Zillow's estimate for a typical North Creek home was about $312,000 in September, up 8.3 percent in a year.
The Tannery Pond Center holds folk and bluegrass concerts, among others, in the Lyle Dye Auditorium, and the Widlund Gallery changes its exhibit every month. This summer, the Town of Johnsburg Library held a mahjong club on Friday afternoons and a knitting circle on Wednesdays, and in May it put on a game night with a pasta potluck and an Uno tournament.
Warrensburg
South of North Creek, toward Lake George, Warrensburg turns into the World's Largest Garage Sale on the first weekend of every October. The sale draws upwards of 100,000 visitors, the tables open at dawn and close at dusk, and a free shuttle brings shoppers in from the parking lots. Nonprofit booths sell raffle tickets for prizes as large as handmade quilts and canoes, and the church parish halls sell food, fried dough included.
On an ordinary weekday, much of the work is down the road. Glens Falls Hospital, in Glens Falls, is Warren County's largest employer, with about 2,800 jobs by the county economic development office's count, and Hudson Headwaters runs a health center in Warrensburg with urgent care. Nine homes sold in town in August, at a median of about $300,000, by Redfin's count. Hackensack Mountain is a moderate hike with views over the Hudson River valley, and Wild Waters Outdoor Center takes rafts and tubes down the Hudson. The town's summer party belongs to the Warrensburg Volunteer Firefighters, who have put on the Smokeaters Jamboree, with a carnival and fireworks, for more than 55 years, and the fire company is the most direct way into that crowd.
Schroon Lake
Up Route 9 from Warrensburg, Schroon Lake has a Saturday farmers market because a young couple who moved to town wanted one. Alexis Conners left her remote job to start it, and her husband, Dempsey, opened Homestead Carpentry Co. The market sets up between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the town pavilion on Leland Avenue, and this year it ran June 13 through September 5. In a town of about 1,880 people, a few households like theirs count for a great deal, and Sue Palisano of the Schroon Lake Chamber of Commerce put the arithmetic simply when she said that if you get 20 people, "that's a percent."
The town beach is reached from Leland Avenue or Dock Street, and in winter the Schroon Lake Ski Center, at the town's nine-hole golf course, has downhill skiing and snow tubing. Census estimates for 2020 through 2024 put the hamlet's median home value near $268,000. The Seagle Festival's 111th season at the Oscar Seagle Memorial Theater ran H.M.S. Pinafore in July and The Sound of Music in August, and its children's opera, Little Red Riding Hood, opened at the Boathouse Theater before touring the region.
Ticonderoga
East of Schroon Lake on Route 74, Ticonderoga has the LaChute River Trail, which makes a good first walk in a new town. The trail covers more than 4 miles with views of the river, and the maps are at the Ticonderoga Heritage Museum, which also keeps a bike station for the Empire State Trail, whose trailhead is downtown. More than 600 people work at the Sylvamo paper mill, and the median home sale in Ticonderoga was about $185,700 in June, by Redfin's figures, with half of renters paying less than $847 a month in Census estimates for 2020 through 2024.
Downtown, the Ticonderoga Natural Foods Co-op on Montcalm Street, owned by its members, is open every day, and between July 11 and October 10 this year the farmers market set up nearby on Saturday mornings. Elizabethtown Community Hospital's Ticonderoga campus has a physician-staffed emergency department open around the clock, and Amtrak's Adirondack stops at the town's station every day. Fort Ticonderoga's grounds cover 2,000 acres on Lake Champlain, and a ticket includes Mount Defiance.
Westport
North along Lake Champlain, Westport has a daily train to New York City, Amtrak's Adirondack, and the depot where it stops is also home to the Depot Theatre, a nonprofit company that stages its shows a few steps from the platform. For a household keeping one foot in the city, the rest is close at hand. The UVM Health Westport Health Center on Route 9N is accepting new primary care patients, and the Census Bureau's 2020-2024 figures put the median home value near $251,000 and the median rent at $864.
The Depot Theatre's 2026 season brought Tick, Tick... Boom! and Ring of Fire, with a teen edition of Hadestown and a junior program in August at the Whallonsburg Grange. The Essex County Fair is held in Westport each summer, and this year it ran July 29 through August 2, with $15 admission covering carnival rides, most shows and parking. The Flying Wallendas performed throughout the fair, and the demolition derby was on Sunday.
The Westport Library on Harris Lane has an author's book launch on November 10. In the 2025 season, Ballard Park's free summer concerts were held on Thursday evenings at 7, in a lakeside pavilion overlooking Lake Champlain.
Keeseville
AuSable Chasm is close to Keeseville, farther north on the Champlain side, and in summer its tubing trips start at Table Rock and float through the Grand Flume, past rock formations named the Sentry Box and the Broken Needle, to the Whirlpool Basin. Tubes and life jackets come with the trip, and anyone 8 or older can ride. A typical Keeseville home was worth about $208,500 in September, by Zillow's estimate, and half the village's renters paid more than $1,091 a month over the 2020-2024 Census survey. The Keeseville Free Library and the Civic Center on Main Street are the places to start meeting people, and the village held a Community Arts Festival this year. Port Douglas Beach is on Lake Champlain, and Ausable Brewing Company and Highlands Vineyard are both nearby.
Saranac Lake
Adirondack Health, with a workforce of about 900 employees and physicians, runs Adirondack Medical Center on Route 86 in Saranac Lake, a village of about 4,900 in the mountains west of Lake Champlain. The village's median owner-occupied home was valued at $199,900 over the 2020-2024 survey period, and rent ran a median of $853.
Pendragon Theatre opened its new downtown venue on Woodruff Street this year, in what had been a vacant grocery store, and its first full production there, Noises Off, opened June 24. On Saturday mornings between May 16 and October 10, the farmers market set up in Riverside Park. Six nearby mountains, Baker, St. Regis, Scarface, Ampersand, Haystack and McKenzie, make up the Saranac Lake 6er, and hikers who climb all of them earn a patch.
Every February, Saranac Lake holds a ten-day Winter Carnival, and the next one runs February 5 through 14, 2027, with the parade on the 13th. The Ice Palace is built for it out of ice harvested from Lake Flower, weather permitting, and last winter's had a 35-foot tower and a short maze. The program runs to ski and snowshoe races, Arctic Golf, a woodsmen's logging demonstration and the Fireman's Broomball game, and a $5 carnival pin is sold each year.
Tupper Lake
The Adirondack Rail Trail connects Saranac Lake with Tupper Lake on a 34-mile route that starts in Lake Placid, free and open all year, and at the Tupper Lake end the houses cost noticeably less. Over the same 2020-2024 Census survey, Tupper Lake's median home value was $117,300, a little under 60 percent of Saranac Lake's, and median rent was $779. Save-A-Lot is in the shopping center on Demars Boulevard, and Shaheen Supermarket is on Park Street.
In a 2025 recruiting drive, the Tupper Lake Volunteer Rescue Squad asked for volunteers to help crew its ambulances, and a first aid and CPR card was enough to start, with no EMT certification needed. After a year with the squad, members could have their EMT training paid for.
The Wild Center, a natural history center on a 31-acre campus, reopened for the season on May 22, and its Wild Walk is a trail of suspension bridges up in the treetops, with a bald eagle's nest big enough for people to climb into and a spider web built to human size. The Friday farmers market was held this year between June 26 and September 11 at 320 Park Street, in the afternoon between 2 and 6.
A hospitality job at Gore Mountain paid between $15.50 and $19.50 an hour last winter and ended in March, while the more than 600 jobs at the Sylvamo mill in Ticonderoga carry on through every season. Remote work, done by about 12,455 people across seven Adirondack counties, goes wherever the house is, and for anyone bringing a job along, the choice comes down to the town. In Tupper Lake, the house costs less, and the rescue squad's 2025 recruits could earn paid EMT training after a year. In Saranac Lake, the hospital is in the village and February brings a palace built of Lake Flower ice. In Speculator, a single trip to Charlie Johns covers the nails and the beer. A newcomer who can picture a winter in one of these places, at the Fireman's Broomball game in Saranac Lake or at Snofest in Old Forge in March, has probably found the right one.
