A Place to Sleep in Sleepy Hollow?

August 23, 2014 5:29 PM

I've hatched a half-hiking half-not trip - taking a train from New York all the way up to the beginning of the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, and hiking the whole thing back down to New York City. But I'm gonna take two days to do it, and am looking for a cheap hotel halfway along - in Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow, or thereabouts. Any suggestions for a hotel?

I'm assuming this would be in Tarrytown or Sleepy Hollow. Looking for something a) cheap, and b) not far from the trail. I could take a cab to get there if need be; especially if that helped me get to somewhere that's a hundred bucks a night or less.

I'd plan to walk from Croton down to....whereever, check in and just chill for the night, and then get back on the trail back down to Bronx in the morning. Would be entirely on foot, so being easy to reach from the trail is important.

All I'm turning up with for options are $150 places that are in different towns entirely. I'm hoping someone knows of a lesser-known motel or something. I'm used to youth hostels so I don't need five-star hotels or anything. Thanks!

posted by EmpressCallipygos to Travel & Transportation around Rosendale, NY (11 answers total)

Try Airbnb in Irvington or maybe Ossining.

If all else totally fails, I have this couch in Yonkers.
posted by sciencegeek at 6:18 PM on August 23, 2014

The Tarrytown Doubletree and Sheraton are both within easy walking distance of the trail, but they won't be cheap. There really aren't any hostels or BnBs around here. Elmsford is not far but I can't vouch for any of the various motels there.
posted by Mothlight at 9:06 PM on August 23, 2014

I'm not familiar with the area, but I like an internet research challenge. Searching on Google Maps I found the Apple Motor Inn in Ardsley, which claims to have rooms starting at $80/night, tax included. After reading the reviews, though, I'd probably opt for a room on AirBnB. Otherwise, most of the cheap accommodations seem to be across the bridge in Nyack.
posted by Orinda at 12:17 AM on August 24, 2014

OK, I just spent a couple of minutes at Hotels.com and if I were you I'd think about La Quinta Inn & Suites Elmsford, which is showing a nightly price of $129 in mid-September, and Days Inn Elmsford, which shows a nightly price of $84 (!). Neither is going to be a nice place, but I assume they wouldn't be disgusting. Days Inn is a little more than two miles off the trail; La Quinta is two and a half miles. Both are walkable, though a big stretch of the route to La Quinta doesn't have sidewalks, so you may prefer taking a cab to walking in the road. Like I said, the nicer places are closer to the trail but also more expensive.
posted by Mothlight at 2:26 PM on August 24, 2014

Rosendale, NY is in Ulster County and nowhere near the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, which is in Westchester County.
posted by mlis at 3:24 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

The OCA is not continuous, so you have to walk on the roadway at several sections, sometimes for half a mile or more. One of these sections is in Tarrytown, around where the Tappan Zee Bridge is, so you could likely find a motel there.

(Just to advise that you should have a detailed map, as it's not always clear where the sections of trail start and finish in relation to each other. The last time I bicycled the trail with friends who themselves have ridden the trail several times, and we still made a wrong turn or two.)
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 8:51 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: computech - that's actually why I asked, because I'd done some scouting online and DIDN'T see anything in Tarrytown that was under $175 a night; they kept shunting me to like the Hilton or the Marriott or these other big horkin' spaces. I'm looking for the cheap-ass stuff.

Then again, as I was going to try this this coming weekend and we are due for rain most of the weekend, this may be a moot point. :-/
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:51 AM on August 25, 2014

One of these sections is in Tarrytown, around where the Tappan Zee Bridge is, so you could likely find a motel there.

There are no motels in Tarrytown. A couple miles east on Route 119 there are motels in Elmsford — the abovementioned La Quinta and Days Inn as well as the Elmsford Motel (as featured in the Nicolas Cage movie 8MM!) but the options in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow really are as limited as described.
posted by Mothlight at 9:50 AM on August 25, 2014

You take Route 119 East from Route 9 (exactly where the TZ Bridge is) in Tarrytown approx 1 mile and there is a Courtyard Marriot and a Doubletree. They are both just over the village line from Tarrytown in the Town of Greenburgh. Elmsford is several more miles east.
posted by mlis at 6:19 PM on August 25, 2014

Response by poster: Courtyard Marriott and Doubletree are not quite what I'd call "cheap", though. I appreciate the hunt for "close", but "cheap" is also important.

What I'm looking for are things like the motor court you find in a small town in the middle of nowhere where it's only about 60 bucks a night and maybe the pool doesn't work. Like the hotel in No Country For Old Men, I would be totally fine with that. There's a Super8 in Nyack across the river, so that would work if need be, but anything that cheap that's closer would also work.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:37 PM on August 25, 2014

By the time you pay a cab to get over the bridge and back, I don't think you'd be saving much in Nyack vs Elmsford. The cheap motels in Elmsford are probably your best bet and, as I mentioned above, they are 2-2.5 miles from the trail. It's not far. (I live in Sleepy Hollow a block from the trail.)
posted by Mothlight at 8:20 PM on August 25, 2014