A Road Trip to Jim Thorpe, PA

My wife Joss and I kept seeing Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania on Instagram. There were vintage trains, river gorges, and a little mountain town that didn’t look like it belonged in Pennsylvania. So one September weekend, we drove across the state from Pittsburgh to see it for ourselves.

Getting There

Jim Thorpe is about five hours from Pittsburgh, so we planned a stop to break up the drive. The Penn State Berkey Creamery in State College is right on the way, and it has a big reputation. It's Penn State's own creamery, it's been making ice cream on campus since 1865, and a lot of the milk comes from the university's dairy herd about a mile away. Even Ben and Jerry took Penn State's ice cream course in 1978 before they started Ben & Jerry's. It was our first time there, so we had high expectations. We got coconut cream and cookie dough, and it lived up to them.

From there we got back on the road for the rest of the drive. We came to Jim Thorpe for the train, but the town itself is what got us first. It sits in a narrow valley along the Lehigh River, with old brick buildings and church steeples stacked up against the mountains. Driving in felt like arriving in a small European town: historic, beautiful, and full of charm. The weather helped, too. It was perfect all weekend, and we never needed a jacket.

The name has a strange story behind it. The town used to be two towns, Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk. In 1954 they merged and renamed themselves after Jim Thorpe, the Olympic champion, even though he never lived there. After Thorpe died, his widow was looking for a place to memorialize him, and the struggling coal town, hoping to bring in tourists, built him a mausoleum and took his name.

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The Y on Broadway

We stayed at The Y on Broadway, a 19-room boutique hotel in a building that opened in 1894 as the YMCA of Mauch Chunk. Over the years it ended up as office space, and the owners spent almost three years turning it into a hotel.

They kept the history instead of covering it up. The four pillars out front came from one of Mauch Chunk's old courthouses. The entryway keeps much of the original layout, including the old safe. Some of the rooms have exposed wooden beams from the old building, and the halls are filled with photos from more than a hundred years of the town's history.

Beth at the front desk was really nice. She checked us in, gave us an overview of the area, and made sure we knew about all the amenities, like the included breakfast.

The hotel is also where we got the best tip of the trip. A guy selling wine there told us about a speakeasy in town. More on that below.

A couple of practical things. If you book directly with the hotel, you get a complimentary drink or snack during your stay. You also get one parking spot per room, which matters here, because Jim Thorpe is a small town and downtown parking is tight.

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Broadway and the Mansions

We spent a few hours walking Broadway and going in and out of the shops. Some of them felt like stepping back in time. There are vintage clothing stores, record stores, unique coffee shops, and plenty more.

Then we walked up the hill to the mansions. The Asa Packer Mansion belonged to the man who founded the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Lehigh University and basically built the town. Next door is the Harry Packer Mansion, which Asa built in 1874 as a wedding gift for his son. We saw them during the day and again at night. In the daytime they're beautiful. At night they're eerie, and as the story goes, the Harry Packer Mansion was the model for Disney's Haunted Mansion ride.

We only saw them from the outside this time. If you want to see the inside, the Asa Packer Mansion is a museum with guided tours, and the Harry Packer Mansion is now an inn, so you can book a night there.

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Hickory Run State Park

The Boulder Field at Hickory Run State Park, a short drive from town, was our favorite part of the trip because there's nothing else like it. It's a huge, flat field with no trees, just boulders that look like they stretch on for miles. It's easy to assume a glacier dropped them there, but the glacier actually stopped about a mile to the north. About 20,000 years ago, the freezing and thawing near the edge of the ice split the boulders off the bedrock, and they slowly slid down into the field over time.

You don't hike across the field itself. It's a place to stand and take in the view. Our photos don't capture how big it is, but the pictures we took on the boulders are still what we talk about most from the whole trip.

There's a long trail that leads to the field, but we also wanted to see Hawk Falls, so we took a different route. Hawk Falls is about 25 feet tall, at the end of a short, easy trail. It's a small waterfall, but there's a good spot to sit, relax, and take it in.

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Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway

The Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway is what got us to Jim Thorpe in the first place. It leaves from the old train station in the middle of town, and the vintage coaches follow the Lehigh River up through the gorge.

The staff was very friendly. They offered to take pictures for us and gave us a heads-up whenever a good view was coming so we'd be ready for it.

The views were nice, but they weren't as good as what we'd seen on Instagram. In September the trees still have their leaves, and a lot of the time they blocked the view of the gorge. Honestly, the best view of the weekend was the street view in town.

Our suggestion is to wait. Go later in the fall once the leaves change and start to thin out, or go around Christmas for their Christmas rides.

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Look for the Cat

The wine guy at the Y didn't give us a name or an address for the speakeasy. He showed us a picture of a cat on his phone and told us the general area. That was it.

The cat turned out to be a tiny sign on an outside wall. No words, just the same image he showed us. If you don't know to look for it, you'd walk right past it.

We didn't even know what the place was called until we googled it afterward: 22 Race After Hours, upstairs at Moya. They take the speakeasy thing seriously, so we're not going to tell you what we drank or what it looks like inside. It's a really cool spot. Go find the cat.

For dinner we went to the Marion Hose Bar, in an old firehouse that still looks the part. Marion Hose was the first fire company in Carbon County, organized in 1853, and the brick firehouse it's in went up in 1886 after the townspeople chipped in $3,500 to build it. The company answered calls from there until 1994. After that, the building spent time as a museum before it reopened as a bar in 2017. My porchetta sandwich and Joss's pasta were both great, and eating in a 140-year-old firehouse beats almost any dining room.

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Laurel Caverns State Park

On the way back to Pittsburgh we stopped at Laurel Caverns State Park. It used to be run by the Laurel Caverns Conservancy, which David and Lilian Cale created. They donated the property to the Commonwealth in 2025, and it officially opened in April 2026 as Pennsylvania's 125th state park and its first underground one.

It's the largest cave in Pennsylvania, with about four miles of passages, and it stays 52 degrees all year. Instead of the usual stalactites, the walls are smooth sandstone.

We did the Full Lighted Tour with Jacob as our guide. He was fun and informative, and even though it's a long tour, it went by quickly because there was so much to see. The Chandelier Hallway was very cool. Next time we want to go deeper with the Deep Depths Caving Program, a four-hour trip through the unlit parts of the cave, crawl passages included, down to its deepest point at 452 feet. If you want to do it too, you have to take the Introduction to Caving Program first.

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Wrapping Up

Two nights was the right amount of time for Jim Thorpe. We went for the train, but the town is what stuck with us. If you want the feel of a small European town with the hiking of small-town Pennsylvania, it's a great option.

We'll be back. Next time we're going around Christmas so we can give the train another shot, and we'll stop at Laurel Caverns on the way home to go deeper.