My Suburban Escapes

Day Trippin' in Lower NY. Get Out In It.

I am by no means a thrill seeker or adventure junkie. I’m a suburban mom with a craving for a bit of adventure. And I found it in my own proverbial backyard – Westchester County. You can do just about anything within a 60-mile radius of the Tappan Zee Bridge – hike, bike, kayak, fish, swim, ski, snowshoe, ride horses, and explore gardens and homes and ruins – and be home in time for supper. It can be challenging to break free of the daily grind, but there’s nothing better to make you appreciate it more upon your return.

“ROAD TRIP!” is a solid cure for restlessness, but we forget about the option as adulthood creeps in. Well, I’ve remembered it. And exploited it. And I am sharing it with you here and in my upcoming guidebook, “My Suburban Escapes,” which lists over 300 days trips with how-to instructions, divided into categories:

• A Nice Ride in the Country
• Easy Strolls and a Meal
• Art Strolls
• Garden Strolls
• Hudson Valley Homes
• Let Me Entertain You
• For Those Who Came Before
• Hiking
• Kayaking
• Biking
• Horseback
• Winter, A Season for Everything
• A Walk on the Wild Side
• Do It Like a Man

So go ahead. Get out there. Explore the lakes and rivers, woods and mountains, Revolutionary War battle sites, and Gold Coast mansions. There’s majesty and beauty waiting to be discovered. Wonder and awe await you. With a little research, a map, and my guidebook in hand, you’ll begin creating your own adventures.

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  • The Gold Coast

    If you put your forefinger and thumb on a map of New York and gently squishWestchester County towards Long Island, pushing the waters of the Sound east into theocean, Rye would connect to the north shore right around Bayville. With a little luckEdith Read Wildlife Sanctuary could slide right through Oyster Bay and into Cold…

  • Farmsteads

    I’ve been fortunate enough to move to Scotland twice with my family, first for 6 monthsin 2010 and again in 2013 for a year. Whilst there, I had twelve hours a day to myselfafter the kids were whisked away by the school bus that would return them at 7pmwatered, fed and better educated than that…

  • Gardens Abound

    I fell in love with rockeries the year we lived in Scotland. To be fair, I fell in love with everything…butter, ice, the sea, silence. Even familiar things took on a patina of newness and adventure, my favorite combination. Our town park was walled and gated, concealing the magic within. When the door swung inward…

  • A Fish Tale

    There’s a secret language spoken around here come spring, one with catch phrases like“pulled him in on a blood worm” and “the boil could happen any day.” It passes likesmoke signals among men from the Hudson River to the Long Island Sound to theAtlantic. I set out to understand it recently and found it wasn’t…

  • Happy Trails

    I’ve accidentally established a quaint routine for the end of Darkness. Each year as the clock springs forward to herald the happy fact that we survived winter, I grab my repair kit and some young children and head out to work on the Manursing Alligator, an old log on the side of the road, which…

  • Oh Little Town of Bethlehem…PA

    I have already opened my best Christmas gift of the year, a treasure trove of history I inadvertently fell into last week while following the star of Bethlehem….to Pennsylvania. I went searching for adventure in shopping and returned with a whole new understanding of the spread of Christianity through the New World. I have already…

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“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for its not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Heraclitus. Get a load of these monsters at Oak Alley in Vacherie, Louisiana. Hello, moon A lil overnight on Greenwood Lake, NJ, or in Warwick, NY, to get off the summer. Like camp for big kids. Hiking on the AT, kayaking the reservoirs, drive-in movies and grownup “milkshakes”. Welcome to BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardam, the largest Hindu temple in the Western Hemisphere and the second largest in the world. And its right here in New Jersey. Construction began in 2014 and it opened to the public in October 2024. Sandstone, limestone and marble, granite mined in Turkey, Greece and Italy was shipped to India for carving then to NJ for the assembly by 12,500 VOLUNTEERS. It is magical. Dine on “Indian street vendor” onsite. Delish. An amazing daytrip. Well hellooooo May. So good to see ya. Time to bloom. “I think that i shall never see a poem lovely as a tree…” Storm King Highway from West Point to Cornwall-on-Hudson has finally re-opened: gateway to gorgeous. Eight mile hike at Sam’s Point in Minnewaska Preserve up a frigid creek bed in the rain to Veerkeerder Kill Falls on top of the world. Worth it.

About Jana Seitz

Originally from Monroe, Louisiana, Jana spent her youth horseback riding in the woods, skiing on the bayou and generally raisin’ hell. She graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she studied English and Public Relations, and then moved to New York City to study acting. 

She stayed in NYC for nine years, during which time she helped found a theatre company (Seraphim), managed the Greenwich Street Theatre, wrote a screenplay (The Ambassador of 20th Street), held various temp jobs (including horse and buggy driver and bike messenger) and acted when she could. 

She moved to Austin, where she had great opportunities as an actress in theatre, film, and commercials and worked with the Austin Film Festival. She also helped run the Texas River School, taking elementary school children from at-risk communities on full-day canoe trips on Lady Bird Lake in the heart of downtown. 

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