Over the summer, JP and I took a week-long trip to New York for my brother‘s wedding in Lake Placid.
We started planning this trip about 6 months in advance because lodging can be pretty scarce during peak travel season.
So we had lots of time to research everything that we wanted to do.
Luckily, my brother‘s new wife is from this area and my other brother’s significant other is also from here, so we had a lot of local insight to help guide our vacation planning.
For our trip, we decided to do a bit of a road trip and just stayed in the Lake Placid area for the weekend of the wedding, so this is an itinerary of everything you can do in just one day.
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Lake Placid One Day Itinerary
You will see later on in this post that if you are a little more price conscious I recommend staying in the nearby town of Lake Saranac.
It’s only about a 10 or 15 minute drive over to Lake Placid, so if you are doing that, then this itinerary will make sense to start in Lake Saranac for the early part of your day.
Then head over to Lake Placid for the vast majority of the rest of the day and end your day back in Lake Saranac.
Breakfast: Campfire Restaurant at Hotel Saranac
If you are staying in Lake Saranac, I recommend having breakfast at the Campfire Restaurant at Hotel Saranac.
We had their hotcakes that come with a locally made maple syrup.
What I enjoyed about our breakfast here is that it was mostly couples or older groups or business travelers, so everyone was just kind of doing their own thing, very low-key, like working on a laptop and having coffee, so it wasn’t anything super chaotic.
Morning: Explore Saranac Lake and Lake Placid Shops
After you’ve had breakfast, I recommend exploring the shops in Lake Saranac.
When we visited, there were a handful of empty store fronts, and some of the storefronts are also more private business type things as opposed to any sort of specialty shop or restaurant so there’s not a ton here, but you should be able to spend about 30 minutes to an hour to walk up and down at the main street here and explore the shops that they do have.
Once you are done with the shops, then that is when I recommend driving the 10-15 minutes over to Lake Placid and parking there at any of the parking lots on the main street.
We parked just outside of the Olympic museum, which is on one of the far ends of Lake Placid.
There are parking lots on the other end as well.
It just depends on if you want to park where you are starting your day versus where you are ending your day or somewhere in the middle.
It is not a huge distance between the two, so if you are also going based off of just where there is availability then that is totally fine too.
The Lake Placid shops have a ton more options.
They have some shops that are specific to the Olympics and Olympic hockey.
They also have a year-round Christmas shop, which I love when places have this because the one souvenir JP and I get from all of our vacations is a Christmas ornament that highlights what we did on our trip and this one had a million options.
We also really enjoyed an Irish and Scottish goods store that had a lot of imported clothes, shoes, jewelry, and trinkets.
There was also a maple syrup shop that had free maple syrup tastings of different kinds from lighter to darker syrups (and you can really tell the difference in the richness between each one).
Lake Placid also had plenty of your typical souvenir and gift shops that have all the Lake Placid merch and kids stuff and all your little trinkets that you would get from any other souvenir shop.
We also stopped in a coffee shop called The Coffee Bar during our time walking around the shops and I got an Almond Joy Latte, which I highly recommend.
I had one before at a coffee shop in a place called Murphy’s, California, which is in a woodsy area just outside of Yosemite and I had completely forgotten about it until I came across this shop and that was the featured drink.
I’m not even much of coffee drinker but I apparently love Almond Joy Lattes.
Lunch: Players Waterfront Eatery
Once you have worked up your appetite, I recommend having lunch at Players Waterfront Eatery.
It is at the opposite end of the main street of Lake Placid from where the Olympic Museum is, so you could also stop and eat here and still explore other shops while you make your way back towards the Olympic Museum.
Next to this restaurant, there’s also a nice little park overlooking the lake.
When we went here, we just shared a Spring Chicken Sandwich with some fries.
The sandwich had grilled chicken with hickory smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, spring mix, apples, coleslaw, and dijon mustard on warm ciabatta bread.
It was a good size for two people to share.
Just like the restaurant name implies, we sat out on the balcony overlooking Lake Placid.
Afternoon: Olympic Museum
The main attraction you have to visit while you are in Lake Placid is the Olympic Museum Center.
They have a museum section that shows some of the memorabilia from the two different winter Olympics that Lake Placid has hosted (1932 and 1980).
You can see the Opening Ceremony outfits, which I always love seeing every Olympics, and some posters, medals, Olympic torches, and just a little bit of everything from the Olympics that have been in Lake Placid.
The museum also has an exhibit that with all interactive things.
One was Olympic Bobsledding where you could get into a bobsled with a circle vision screen, and you could pretend you were sledding the official courses.
You could also test out speed skating by hopping back-and-forth on dots to see if you could keep pace with speed skaters.
But the highlight of this museum is that the arena here is the location of where the Miracle on Ice hockey game was played when the US played USSR (Russia) and beat them.
They even have the scoreboard from it that you can take a picture with in the lobby of the museum.
You can also visit the arena from the 1932 Olympics.
There’s also a cafeteria and a sports bar so you can spend a good amount of time here or just see the highlights that you wanna see in an hour or two.
Dinner: Lakeside Drift in Lake Saranac
At the end of the day, once you are ready for dinner and ready to head back towards Lake Saranac, I recommend having dinner at Lakeside Drift.
It is a restaurant that is directly on Lake Saranac.
When we went it was actually for a welcome reception the night before my brother’s wedding, so there was a lot of of us and we were able to sample a handful of things.
The Steak and Frites was really good, except it came with mashed potatoes for some reason.
We also had Crab Cakes that came with French Fries.
We had ordered a Mushroom Pasta with Shrimp but it just came out as like a Fettuccine Alfredo, which is fine because I don’t actually care for mushrooms all that much.
It wasn’t how it was pictured in the menu, but it was still good.
Evening: Hotel Saranac Historic 1920s Bar
If you are still looking for more things to do in the evening, I highly recommend checking out Hotel Saranac.
It is a haunted hotel from the 1920s that has been restored.
Up on the second level, there’s a bar that looks straight out of the Tower of Terror from Disney World.
When we stayed here, we got a daily food and beverage dining credit, so we used it for the campfire restaurant that I mentioned for breakfast and we also used it here at the hotel bar.
We were there in the summer, but it was still cold and rainy in the evenings, so we would get a Hot Toddy each night.
Where To Stay: Hotel Saranac
With that being said, I highly recommend staying at Hotel Saranac if you are visiting the Lake Placid area.
When we were planning our trip, I originally just searched for what Hilton hotels were in the area because we have the highest tier Hilton Honors rewards.
When this one came up as part of their boutique collection AND I saw that it was a haunted hotel and newly restored, I knew that’s where we had to stay and it was actually one of the cheaper options.
We got free parking and an $18 daily food and beverage credit, so it was a steal compared to what my family members paid for to stay in regular hotels in Lake Placid.
Conclusion: Lake Placid One Day Itinerary
So if you only have one day to visit Lake Placid, I highly recommend just taking a stroll up and down the main street to check out all the different types of specialty shops that they have and have lunch overlooking the lake.
Definitely visit the Olympic center and take the 10-15 minute drive over to Lake Saranac and check out their shops on their main street and the haunted 1920s hotel.
If you have more time, I recommend taking a day trip over to Saratoga Springs, just 2 hours away.
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