Free & Cheap Things to Do in Cooperstown

Arts & Culture

A lakeside museum of American folk art, Hudson River School painting and one of the country's great collections of North American Indian art, in a 1930s neoclassical house on the site of James Fenimore Cooper's farm. Everyone aged 19 and under gets in free, every day it is open.

Address: 5798 State Highway 80, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: Under-20s are free, and so are SNAP cardholders with up to four people, which makes this the cheapest serious museum in the village by a distance. Open Tuesday to Sunday 10am-4pm most of the year, daily 10am-5pm in high summer, and closed January to March.

Historic Sites

An 1840s rural New York village rebuilt on a working farm - printing office, pharmacy, blacksmith, schoolhouse and a doctor's surgery, staffed by interpreters in period dress, with heritage-breed livestock and the Empire State Carousel. Known as The Farmers' Museum until its recent rename.

Address: 5775 State Highway 80, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: Open daily 10am-5pm from late May to early September, Tuesday to Sunday 10am-4pm in spring and autumn, and closed for the winter. A two-way ticket with the Fenimore Art Museum across the road is $30 for an adult and still $10 for a junior.

Parks & Nature

Eight miles up Otsego Lake from the village, with a swimming beach on the water James Fenimore Cooper called Glimmerglass, woodland and beaver-pond trails, and the 1825 Hyde Hall Covered Bridge - the oldest surviving covered bridge in New York. At $7 a car it is the cheapest state park gate in the region.

Address: 1527 County Highway 31, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: The fee is collected in peak season only, roughly late May to early September - outside that window parking is free. Swimming runs 11am-7pm from late May to Labor Day. In winter the park turns over to snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and ice skating.

Historic Sites

A 50-room neoclassical country house built between 1817 and 1834 for George Clarke, grandson of a colonial governor, overlooking Otsego Lake from inside Glimmerglass State Park. One of the most complete surviving houses of its kind in America, shown by guided tour.

Address: 267 Glimmerglass State Park Road, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: Tours run on the hour from 10am to 3pm daily, late May through October only; the extended tour is $20. The house sits inside Glimmerglass State Park, so the park's vehicle fee applies on the way in during peak season.

Parks & Waterfront

Two and a half acres of village green at the southern tip of Otsego Lake, a few minutes' walk from Main Street - an octagonal bandstand on a stone base, picnic tables, a boat launch and village docks, kayak racks and the view straight up the lake that the whole town is named for.

Address: Fair Street at the lake, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: The Cooperstown Lakefront Concert Series runs here in summer and costs nothing to attend. Restrooms on site. In winter the slope is the village sledding hill.

History & Culture

A one-acre park at the corner of Lake and River Streets, on the west bank where the Susquehanna River leaves Otsego Lake. Council Rock itself sits offshore - a meeting place long before the village existed, and the point the Clinton-Sullivan expedition of 1779 set out from. Stone columns and historical markers explain it.

Address: Lake Street at River Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: Stone steps lead from the street down to the water for the best view of the rock. It is a five-minute walk from Main Street and pairs naturally with Lakefront Park a couple of blocks away.

Shopping & Strolling

Two blocks long, with the only traffic light in the village - a run of nineteenth-century storefronts holding baseball memorabilia shops, independent retailers and restaurants, and free family events through the summer. The Hall of Fame sits on it, but the street itself costs nothing to walk.

Address: Main Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: Parking on Main Street is very limited; use the village trolley from the edge-of-town lots in summer rather than circling. Most of the memorabilia shops are free to browse whether or not you are buying.

Markets & Food

A year-round market in a covered building off Pioneer Alley, where every vendor comes from within fifty miles - produce, meat, cheese, honey, baked goods and craft work. Rare for a village this size to sustain a market through the winter, and it does.

Address: Pioneer Alley, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: Saturdays 9am-2pm from May to December and 10am-2pm January to April, plus Tuesday afternoons 12-4pm in high summer. A Cooperstown Repair Cafe runs on selected dates.

Markets & Food

A Belgian-style farmhouse brewery on 136 acres outside the village, known well beyond it for its Game of Thrones beers. A brewery tour runs twenty to thirty minutes for $5, a tasting flight of up to six beers is $10, and the cafe, bar and patio are open to anyone who walks in.

Address: 656 County Highway 33, Cooperstown, NY 13326

Tip: The tour is the cheap way in at $5 for half an hour; the $10 flight is the better value if you only do one. Children under 5 are not allowed on the tour. Open from noon most days, 11am Sundays.