Hudson Valley, NY

Destination Guide

It's the weekend. Your children can: A) blast monsters on their computers all day or B) tour historic sites in upstate New York with Mom and Dad. If it happens to be Halloween, and the destination is the ghostly land of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, you may have more cooperative company in the car than you expected.

Just 26 miles from Manhattan, Sleepy Hollow, in lower Hudson Valley, is like a scary movie set come alive -- especially during October's annual Legend Weekend. This is, after all, where you'll find the once fictional -- and now real -- town made famous by author Washington Irving in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. (The hamlet of North Tarrytown officially changed its name to Sleepy Hollow in 1996.) The short story, of course, features one very ghoulish "Headless Horseman."

During Legend Weekend, ghouls, witches, and even Headless Horseman clones visit Philipsburg Manor; and spooky events take place at Sunnyside, Irving's home. In fact, Sleepy Hollow is one spooky place to take the kids at Halloween.