The average college road-trip most likely will not be filled with the raucous fun found in the movie of the same name (it most likely won’t be like Thelma and Louise either). However, just because you won’t destroy your family car or visit a sperm-bank, this doesn’t mean that you should avoid the idea of hitting the great open road.
Just as it’s important to leave the hustle-and-bustle of city life, the act of leaving Cornell can remind you of what college and being young is all about. Don’t forget, Route 13 extends beyond K-mart, and despite what you may believe, people DO party past 1:00am in other parts of this great land of ours. So pack your bags, grab White Lion’s Greatest Hits, strap on the seatbelt, and as Nicholas Cage would say, “Let’s roll.”
The Nearest City
Some would argue that Syracuse isn’t much of a city, but by my standards (fully functional mall, square buildings, and police car patrols), the ‘Cuse is a great alternative to an Ithaca weekend. At under an hour, the drive is doable in a day-trip — or for those who want to stay over, there is plenty of inexpensive lodging in the area. My recommendation for lodging would be the couch (or bed) of one of Syracuse University’s many students. Syracuse offers a plethora of “college-scene” bars (i.e. bars with 17 year-olds and up) to the downtown more mature bars (i.e. 21 years old). If you are going to Syracuse to party with the college students, make sure to make it up by Thursday night since Friday is a rest night (you’ll see why on Thursday). Thursdays are busy at almost every bar, but Lucy’s Surfer Bar and Harry’s are surely where you can find a ‘scene’ whose only requisite is fighting your way through a crowd to the bar. Friday should be reserved for checking out the local area, including a possible day-trip to Turningstone, a local casino built on an Indian Reservation. It features everything from lodging (pricey, with the cheapest rooms at around $60/night) to any casino game you can imagine.
If gambling isn’t to your taste, the Carousel Mall is a large-scale mall which is slated to become “The Largest Mall in America” with a multi-million dollar renovation that will bring an amusement park and high-end stores (that means belts adorned with names like Gucci and Prada). Head back to Syracuse at around 5:00p.m. to check out Happy Hour done right. You should go around M-Street (Mitchell Street) and see what you can find, but my personal recommendation is Faigens, which has the largest assortment of beers on tap I’ve seen in upstate New York. All in all, I can highly recommend Syracuse for an exciting nightlife, and a great place to get a taste for what college life is like outside of Cornell. I wonder if Syracuse students take road trips to Ithaca