2 nights/3 days exploring Fort Lee, New Jersey and Harriman State Park, New York
When my wife and I lived in New York City, visiting Fort Lee, New Jersey, was a fairly common occurrence, especially if you’re Korean-American. With so many Korean owned businesses including many awesome restaurants and cafes in the area, it made sense to get our Korean food fix just over the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee.
Although the bridge toll was always on the expensive side, we liked the slower pace of life in Fort Lee compared to the always hectic life on the other side of the bridge in Flushing, Queens, which also has a huge Korean community. One other draw of Fort Lee, maybe just as important as the slower pace, was the seemingly more upscale look & feel of Korean owned businesses there.
It just felt like more money was spent in Fort Lee to spruce up those establishments compared to more homey, had seen better days feel of those in Flushing. Last, but not least reason for us visiting Fort Lee was that it made sense to stop over on the way to and from points west or south. With typically cheaper gasoline prices (no longer true lately but it was usually 20-30 cents cheaper per gallon compared to NYC), and those aforementioned upscale restaurants and cafes, you can say we definitely like the place.
With those thoughts in mind, we are always looking for reasons to visit the area as long as hotel prices are reasonable, meaning around $250 for 2 nights for our budget. We lucked out with a Homewood Suites in the town of Mahwah (northern New Jersey) for around $250 for a one bedroom suite.
We have been huge fans of the Homewood Suites chain since we joined Hilton Honors program in 2023. We liked the spacious, comfortable rooms with full kitchens where we can prepare our own meals.
With hotel booked, we left our parent’s place in New York City for Fort Lee, on a chilly Sunday morning in March. The main reason why we picked a Sunday on purpose was because parking is usually much easier to find on Sundays with many towns nearby waiving parking restrictions on Sundays.
I really didn’t want to search more than 5 minutes for a parking spot! Looking for a place to park for more than that, is no longer appealing the older I get!
Thanks to light traffic on a Sunday (another positive thing), we crossed the George Washington Bridge in no time, then crossed over into New Jersey. We had plenty of time before we could check in to our hotel, so we decided to spend few hours in Fort Lee.
These are the places we visited that day:
- Fort Lee Historic Park
Fort Lee Historic Park, run by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, is a cliffside park featuring scenic vistas, a visitor center, and a reconstructed Revolutionary War camp. It was a shame we never got to visit this place even though we had lived nearby for over 20 years. Yikes.
You know what they say. We rarely visit attractions close to where we live…Ok, maybe this is just me…
We arrived at the park, and paid few dollars for parking. Even on a chilly Sunday morning, there were fellow visitors on site.
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| George Washington Bridge |
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| Old cannons along the walking path |
We were immediately impressed by the park. The walking paths are well maintained and there are placards explaining several historic sites along the route.
However, the thing that impressed us the most was by far the incredible views. There are many to choose from: 1) the famous George Washington Bridge, 2) the iconic Hudson River, 3) the Manhattan skyline, and 4) skyline of Fort Lee.
We walked all around, going as far south as the path allowed, then backtracked to see more of the park. The view of the bridge is by far the best view of them all!
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| Hudson River view |
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| Manhattan skyline in the distance |
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| Bridge up close! |
After reading about the construction of the bridge and the park’s history, we headed towards the visitor center to learn about the history of Fort Lee especially during the Revolutionary War. Fort Lee was a crucial stronghold on the New Jersey Palisades, designed to block British navigation of the Hudson River. George Washington’s retreat across New Jersey marked a low point of the war, before the victory at Trenton.
We liked the various displays of all the neat historical artifacts inside. It is a must visit attraction for any American, as well as any history buffs!
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| Displays inside the visitor center |
- Totowah Plus Restaurant
Located in the town of Palisades Park, Totowah Plus is a Korean restaurant that serves many Korean staples like tteokbokki (rice cakes in spicy broth), fried foods, gimbap (Korean sushi rolls). We are always in the mood for some delicious foods, and besides we were getting hungry after visiting the Fort Lee Historic Park.
We luckily found a parking spot just around the corner from the restaurant, then walked in to the aroma of Korean spices and fried goodies. We ordered the tteokbokki & fried foods set menu for around $25, which was really affordable.
The owner was nice enough to tell us not to order an extra appetizer, as he said it was already is included in the set menu. Very nice of him to save us money!
The foods arrived in typical Korean fashion, meaning it was fast, and the foods were delicious! Tteokbokki was right on point, with just enough spices and with generous amount of other ingredients like the requisite fish cakes, cabbage, and scallions. The portions of the fried foods that included things like sweet potatoes, carrots/potatoes, calamari, were huge. It was so huge, that we took half of the food home, to our hotel.
It’s a great feeling to have left overs on a $25 meal! Cool. My kind of a place!
We highly recommend this place to anyone who likes Korean foods.
After the hearty meal, we headed north, towards our Homewood Suites in Mahwah. It was a drive of roughly 30 minutes covering 21 miles.
We checked in, then got our keys to our room on the second floor with views of the parking lot and a commercial building just across the road. It wasn’t exactly oceanfront views we had gotten used to just the prior month, but we’ll take it. A view, any view of a street, is still better than no view…
We settled in nicely in our room, relaxing after a warm shower with some decaf coffees in our hands. We finished our leftovers from lunch, feeling full and satisfied. Not bad for a $25 meal.
After a good night’s sleep, we got up the next morning, exercised, then went downstairs to eat breakfast. We loaded up a bit extra, loading up on extra calories in anticipation of our hike that day. Harriman State Park, here we come!
- Harriman State Park
We drove a quick 15 minutes and arrived at the Reeves Meadow Visitor Center. We knew this visitor center was very popular on weekends with parking lot filling up quickly.
Even on a Monday morning, the parking lot was half full (not very big, with spots for maybe 20 cars). We wore our hiking boots then started our hike.
The route would take us towards White trail, Blue trail, then to Red trail. This was a route that was recommended by a hiker who mentioned this route (going counterclockwise) was easier than going the other way.
We followed that instruction, and we turned right to get on the Blue trail from the fork in the road. We were energized and eager to do some hiking.
We noticed the trail was reasonably easy for the first mile or so. After a mile or so, we lost track of the trail, and veered off course. I knew it wasn’t the right way when it got really difficult to traverse and there were no footpaths of any kind.
We tried looking around for any signs of a trail marker, but failed to do so. We decided to backtrack about a minute when we saw the trail marker! Wow, what a relief!
We got back on course, then continued. We rested on large boulders to cool down and to drink some water and to eat something. We met a lone gentleman who was hiking by himself in these mountains. He had been hiking in other states as well.
We shared stories of our hikes, then after several minutes, he departed. We could tell he was an avid hiker just by looking at his walking pace. He was very fast. We lost sight of him well within few seconds.
After finishing our lunch, we also got up, eager to tackle this trail. We had walked several minutes when we saw in the distance, a 100 foot tall rock wall. It looked more imposing the closer we got.
We read reviews of this rock wall, and knew we needed to take our time going up that rock wall. At a steep angle of easily over 50 degrees in some spots, we had to be careful, to really plant our hands and feet as we climbed.
We made it safely to the top of the rock wall in about 10 minutes. As hard as that scramble was, the views from the top was well worth it!
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| What a view! |
After enjoying the view from the top for few minutes, we were itching to continue. We headed out, wondering where it would lead us to.
We followed the trail markers carefully, not wanting to miss it again, when we saw the third part of the trail, the Red trail. By this point in our hike, we must’ve hiked about 2+ miles. We were secretly wondering when this trail would end.
After close to what felt like forever, we finally descended towards the bottom of the trail, to the sounds of flowing water. We were hoping this was the Stony Brook, which would mean we were getting close to completing the loop.
We were right! We were relieved to finally see this brook after couple of hours of hiking in the woods. We followed the brook, telling ourselves we were close to the parking lot, all the while listening to the refreshing, rejuvenating sounds of water flowing.
Our feet were complaining about the drastic change in our hiking activity. It had been a long time since we hiked this long. Was it during our trip to Zion National Park???
As tired as we were, we finally finished the hike of 3.5 miles within about 3 hours. We were exhausted, and our feet were complaining, but we also felt good knowing we had done a really nice hike.
No pain, no gain…
We headed back to our hotel, but on our way there, we stopped at a pizza place called Sonny & Tony’s Pizza & Italian Restaurant in Mahwah. We seriously needed some high caloric foods and pizzas were good as they come.
How were the pizzas? They were delicious! Great New York style thin crust, with perfect blend of tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and Italian seasonings. What more can I ask?
In conclusion:
We got into going on short trips to nearby surrounding states lately, and it has been very rejuvenating. It breaks up the month, and we get to get some much needed nature therapy via hikes in the woods, or via new restaurants!
Although this trip was only for 2 nights, we still filled it with plenty of activities. We visited couple of new parks, hiked over 3.5 miles, ate delicious Korean foods, and ate some delicious pizzas. That is a lot!
We look forward to visiting more of these nearby treasures in our future. Thank you for reading and happy trails!
Jake
Wandering Money Pig
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