Landing at Lancaster Airport in Lancaster puts you at the center of a region, where nearby cities and scenery are close by. Lancaster is a red-brick city surrounded by Amish and Mennonite farmland, which gives it a rare mix of downtown energy and horse-and-buggy countryside. Galleries, breweries, and a lively food scene fill the center, and within ten minutes you are passing covered bridges and roadside pie stands.

Standout experiences around Lancaster: - Shop Central Market, the oldest continuously running farmers market in the country - Walk the galleries and shops downtown on First Friday - Ride a steam train through farm fields on the Strasburg Rail Road - Browse the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania across the street in Strasburg - Tour the Ephrata Cloister, an eighteenth-century religious community - Twist your own pretzel at the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery in Lititz - Take in a big-stage production at Sight and Sound Theatres - Taste shoofly pie, chicken pot pie, and whoopie pies at a family-style Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant - Bring the kids to Dutch Wonderland - Drive the back roads through Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse for quilt shops and farm stands

Lititz, ten minutes north of Lancaster, has a walkable main street and a chocolate factory. Hershey and its park are about 40 minutes away, Harrisburg is a similar distance, and York is half an hour west across the Susquehanna. Gettysburg and its battlefield are about an hour, and Philadelphia is roughly ninety minutes east. Try a bowl of chicken corn soup at a church supper if you spot a sign, and watch for buggies on the roads on Sunday. Lancaster manages to be both a city weekend and a country escape at once.