When I discovered I was formally invited on a press trip with my mom, I was jumping for joy! Soon enough, the day came, so we hopped on a plane and made our way to Rochester, New York. As you probably know, she’s a travel writer. She takes me on all these awesome trips, and now I’m finally old enough to write my own article! Here are my favorite things I did in Rochester!

Notes from Mom (aka Katie Goes There): I was so excited when Visit Rochester invited not only me but my 10-year-old daughter out for a weekend getaway to enjoy 2 days of tween-approved activities. When we got home, I forced her strongly encouraged her to write a blog post from her perspective. What you see here is 100% her work. I helped her do a bit of self-editing but didn’t touch it otherwise. We travel a lot as a family but this trip really showed me how fun a mother-daughter weekend could be, and I hope we can do more of these trips before she’s too old to want to hang around with me. Be sure to check out my brand new Instagram account @katiegoesthere to see more photos and videos from this trip.

Strong National Museum Of Play

The Strong Museum is awesome! We walked in, saw the high-rise ropes course, and decided to do it. We thought it would be some dopey kids thing. We soon discovered they were not messing around. You are hooked into a harness and put in some sort of a train track. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure! You could go up, down, around, sideways, anywhere! The hardest one was on the second story. There was a pole and some purple shapes that curved around it. I tried to walk through and it stopped me. We realized you had to wrap around these huge things fifty or so feet in the air! We were so proud once we did it, though.

After that, we went to an area where you color something and put it in a virtual aquarium projected on the wall. I named mine Fredrick, The Jellyfish. And we had some lunch. We both ordered individual-sized pizzas. Turns out, they are not individuals. Maybe for an 800-pound man, but not for us!

Towpath Bike Rental

I sure have a lot to say about Towpath Bike Rentals! The employees are super friendly and are willing to help with anything! Although my bike was in sort of rough shape, they took pretty good care of it! Our bike ride was quite nice, and the scenery was super pretty. Definitely try this if you like scenery or stuff like that. LOTS OF BIRDS. Tons of birds on the shore! You also get to ride through this cute little harbor market thing, where they had this awesome gelato place.

Radio Social

No words. At all. The vibe is ethereal from the moment you walk into Radio Social. They have a restaurant and a bar right there, and down the hall, they have another bar, an outdoor game area, and THE BOWLING LANES! They even have bumpers on them that you can put up so you don’t get gutter balls! Not that I got a ton of gutter balls… but anyway. Moving on. They had super cute animations on the scoring screens when you got a strike, a spare, or you missed an opportunity. Their curly fries are INSANE. They come with a spicy-sweet sauce that I really liked and have such good seasoning. It was huge, though. Plus, they have Detroit-style pizza! Come on, any tweens dream!!!

Genesee Country Village and Museum

Now for the historical part, Genesee Country Village and Museum. I wasn’t too excited about this at first, but it grew on me from the second I stepped foot into the confectionery. They have such cute little bags of candy there! Some are historical ripoffs, and some are just for fun! The nectar drops are really good, and the lady said some guy just mixed a bunch of flavors together until he thought it tasted like nectar. The characters stationed around are so approachable and easy to talk to. They’re not, like, SO in character that it’s just awkward, and they’re not scrolling on TikTok or something when nobody’s there! Plus, they had super fun interactive events. You could learn how to be a printer and even watch baking in a house! Super fun, even for people who aren’t history nerds!

Rochester Museum And Science Center

RMSC was a kids’ science museum. Science-y, but mostly games and stuff. They had a really cool video game exhibit where you could make your character and collect achievements from playing the games they had there. They also had a goofy fossil dig thing where it was literally half an inch of rubber junk, and the bones were glued to the floor. Heh. They had some natural disaster exhibits and a bunch of animal and prehistoric ones. Lots of older kid stuff. They also had a fish exhibit and a plastic waste one with a huge plastic, color-changing play space. (Very ironic)

Final Thoughts

In all, Rochester is a really cool place to visit and explore. It has awesome stuff to do and see, whatever your age. This destination is super family-friendly. Whether you’re browsing the farmers market, going to the science museum, or riding a bike, Rochester might be the place for you.