Things to Do in Poughkeepsie

The Survival Race’s 5-kilometer track challenges racers to navigate a gauntlet of mud-laden terrain. Staggered waves of 300 runners each conquer military-style obstacles, wade through murky water, and slide through muddy trenches before reaching the finish line to celebrate at a shindig awash with delicious eats and smitten swamp monsters. Afterward, a Facebook album aids online nostalgia by showcasing dirt-caked athletes and their marshy feats.

The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival is dedicated to producing the plays of Shakespeare with an economy of style that focuses its energy and resources on script, actors and audience. We communicate the stories with energy, clarity and invention and we distill rather than embellish the language and action.

Rooted in New York and New Jersey, Pin Street Bowling Centers have provided family-friendly entertainment for more than 50 years. The spacious lanes are conditioned each day, guaranteeing pristine surfaces for open bowling sessions and leagues, which are divided by season, gender, and age. Competition continues in the snack bar and lounge, where pool tables, hearty burgers, salads, and creative cocktails match up with customers' cravings. Pin Street’s staffers can accommodate groups by opening early or staying late to, and they cater parties with customizable menus that address any dietary restrictions or phobias of flatware.

After investing $1 million in its opulent decor, entrepreneur and theater impresario Sylvester Z. Poli opened the Palace Theater in the early 1920s. Architect Thomas Lamb, known for building some of the United States' first movie houses, used Poli's funds to build the Palace Theater into an extravagant venue modeled after the Second Renaissance Revival style of architecture. The theater’s ornate dome ceilings, grand lobbies, and seats equipped with crown holders added to a palatial setting fit for royalty. Though the venue eventually closed in 1987, it sprung back to life 18 years later with a $30 million restoration project that expanded it into a 90,000-square-foot arena suitable for large performances, including Broadway productions.

For more than a century, the Berkshire Museum has blended history, science, and art into a cohesive whole, drawing inspiration from both the Smithsonian and the American Museum for Natural Science. The museum is packed with wonders ranging from Wally—the fiberglass stegosaurus who guards the museum’s entry—to the John James Audubon display, an impassioned tribute to the very ornithology that prompted Audubon to pen The Birds of America. Other, more playful displays unveil additional wonders, including Alexander Calder's collection of wooden push and pull toys. And inside the vast, salty aquarium, a teeming collection of clownfish, blind cave tetra, and puffer fish swim merrily side-by-side, thankful that they've yet to be cast as members of some trite, underwater calypso band.

In Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, narrator Sal Paradise has this to say about New York’s most famous river: "If you drop a rose in the Hudson River at its mysterious source in the Adirondacks, think of all the places it journeys by as it goes out to sea forever—think of that wonderful Hudson Valley." At Mountain Valley Guides, the kayaking team allows customers to heed Sal’s thoughts and explore the river's expanse of open water, marshes, islands, and cliffs. Kayakers paddle to the base of the Storm King Mountain, explore the castle on Bannerman's Island, search for bald eagles in Moodna Marsh, relax on the beach at Little Stony Point, and end the evening with a Hudson Valley Sunset.