For Peak Fall Vibes, Head to the Catskills

"Take the Phoenicia Diner, an obvious first stop just off the highway at the foothills of the Catskills, where you can get all the regular diner fixings—home fries, multiple Benedict variations, etc.—except with hyper-fresh ingredients."

"Pizza is a foodstuff you maybe don't associate with rural dining rooms, but Table on Ten, a house buzzing with life on a quiet street corner in the actual middle of nowhere (also known as Bloomville), makes pizza so damn good you just might hop on Zillow and check property listings in the area."

"Then there's Brushland Eating House in Bovina, which specializes in Brooklyn-style comfort food—think ultra-doughy, anchovy-laced, hand-rolled pasta—without any of the Brooklyn pretense. Order the pork schnitzel, which tastes like the world's most luxurious chicken nugget, and balance it out with one of the few kale salads that have ever legitimately warranted a $10 price tag."

"But it's not just food that's been elevated. Catskills lodgings are now as tastefully luxe as they are cozy, rustic, and wooden-bear-adorned. Plus they're stocked with the same fancy soaps as that boutique hotel in L.A. you're dying to try. Book a room at the Deer Mountain Inn for capital-L lodge vibes. The inn's top floor is part game room, part honor-system bar, which feels like the cool attic of the rich grandparents you never had."

"For a more minimalist, designed-by-an-Instagram-algorithm aesthetic, check into Scribner's Catskill Lodge, down the road in Hunter. The best place to be caught during a thunderstorm is at the circular bar in front of the big windows at Prospect, Scribner's' restaurant."

"Make your first detour to Kabinett & Kammer in Andes, the sort of vintage store where you can find a perfectly restored antique wardrobe and a taxidermied raccoon to go with it."

"Hiking freaks should head to Tremper Mountain or the less trafficked Bramley Mountain farther west."

"There's pilgrimage-worthy rock climbing at the nearby Shawangunk Mountains—known as “the Gunks.”