Rain Is the Baseline, Not the Exception
Ithaca sits at the southern tip of Cayuga Lake in a valley that funnels moisture off the lake and channels weather systems through like a natural wind tunnel. The city averages 160 days of precipitation per year — that is 44 percent of all days. If you plan a three-day trip to Ithaca, the probability that at least one day involves rain is well above 80 percent. The locals do not cancel plans for rain. They own good jackets. Visitors should adopt the same approach: pack a waterproof layer, leave the white sneakers at home, and treat a rainy day as a different kind of Ithaca day rather than a ruined one.
What follows is a guide to Ithaca’s indoor life — the museums, restaurants, shops, and campus spaces that make a rainy day not just tolerable but genuinely worthwhile.
Museums and Cultural Spaces
Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell
The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art is a free museum housed in a brutalist concrete building designed by I.M. Pei, perched on the edge of a gorge on the Cornell campus. The building itself is worth the visit — the fifth-floor sculpture court has floor-to-ceiling windows with views over Cayuga Lake that improve in moody weather, when low clouds and rain give the panorama a dramatic quality that blue skies do not. The permanent collection spans Asian art, European prints, and contemporary American work. The Asian galleries on the third floor, with their Qing dynasty ceramics and Japanese woodblock prints, are particularly strong. Temporary exhibitions rotate regularly and tend toward the ambitious. Allow 60 to 90 minutes. Free admission. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Mondays. Parking is available in the nearby campus lots; the museum is a 10-minute walk from the main Arts Quad.
Museum of the Earth
The Museum of the Earth, operated by the Paleontological Research Institution, sits on Route 96B about two miles south of downtown Ithaca. This is a serious science museum — not a children’s play space with a few fossil cases, but a genuine research-connected institution with exhibits on the geological history of the Finger Lakes region, a full-size North Atlantic right whale skeleton suspended in the atrium, and a collection of 3.5 million specimens in its research archives. The exhibit on how the Finger Lakes formed — carved by glaciers during the last ice age, roughly 10,000 years ago — is the best explanation of the region’s landscape you will find anywhere. Kids engage with the hands-on fossil identification stations. Adults get absorbed in the deep-time geology exhibits. Allow 90 minutes to two hours. Admission: $10 adults, $6 children 4 to 17. Open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Ithaca Sciencenter
For families with children ages 3 through 12, the Sciencenter on First Street downtown is the rainy-day anchor. It is a hands-on science museum with over 250 interactive exhibits: a water play area, a kinetics section, live animals, and a climbing structure. The outdoor science playground closes in rain, but the indoor exhibits fill a solid two to three hours for younger kids. It is not a large space — do not expect the scale of a big-city science museum — but the quality of the interactions is high and the staff is engaged. Admission: $10 adults, $8 children 2 to 17. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday noon to 5 p.m.
Cornell Campus Indoor Walks
Even if you are not affiliated with Cornell, the campus offers a rainy-day circuit of indoor spaces worth seeing. Start at the Johnson Museum, then walk through the A.D. White Library in Uris Hall — a multi-story reading room with iron balconies and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that looks like it belongs in a Harry Potter film. The library is open to visitors and is one of the most beautiful rooms in the state. From there, the Kroch Library downstairs houses rare books and manuscript exhibits (free, open weekdays). The Mann Library on the agriculture campus, a 10-minute walk east, has a quiet top-floor reading room with views over the Ag Quad. The full campus indoor circuit covers about a mile of walking, almost entirely under cover or with short outdoor transitions, and fills two to three hours.
The Gorges in Rain
This deserves its own section because it goes against the instinct to avoid outdoor attractions in wet weather. The gorge trails are often at their most dramatic in rain. Water flow increases, the waterfalls run harder, the shale walls darken and glisten, and the green canopy drips overhead. The trails at Taughannock Falls, Robert H. Treman, and Buttermilk Falls are built on stone and gravel — they do not turn to mud the way dirt trails do. You will get wet, but if you have waterproof boots and a rain jacket, the experience of walking a gorge in rain is more immersive and less crowded than a sunny Saturday.
Caveats are real: the stone steps at Treman and Buttermilk become slippery in rain. Use trekking poles if you have them and go slowly on the staircases. Do not attempt gorge trails during or immediately after heavy rainfall — the creeks can rise rapidly, and trails close when water levels are dangerous. Check the New York State Parks website or call the park office for trail status before heading out. The flat gorge trail at Taughannock is the safest option in moderate rain: no stairs, wide gravel surface, and the payoff of watching 215-foot Taughannock Falls in full flow is substantial.
Eating and Drinking
Moosewood Restaurant
Moosewood has been on the Ithaca Commons since 1973. It is collectively owned, vegetarian (with vegan options), and has shaped American cooking through its series of cookbooks more than most people realize. The menu changes daily and draws from global cuisines — you might find a Moroccan chickpea stew on Monday and a Thai curry on Tuesday. The food is earnest, flavorful, and affordable. Lunch is less crowded than dinner. A meal for two with drinks runs $35 to $55. The dining room is on the second floor, up a flight of stairs, with tables overlooking the Commons. In rain, it is a warm, dry, window-fogged kind of place that does exactly what you want a rainy-day restaurant to do.
Other Strong Options
- Collegetown Bagels (CTB) — Not just a bagel shop. CTB is an Ithaca institution with excellent sandwiches, coffee, and a sprawling seating area that fills with students, professors, and locals on rainy mornings. The Cornell campus location on College Avenue is the original; the downtown location on Aurora Street is less crowded. Breakfast and lunch only.
- Nong’s Thai Kitchen — Small, inexpensive, and genuinely good. The green curry and pad thai have devoted followings among the Cornell community. Expect a wait at peak lunch hours in a space that seats about 30. Cash preferred.
- Just a Taste — A wine and tapas bar on the Ithaca Commons with a menu of small plates and a thoughtful wine list that includes Finger Lakes producers alongside European selections. The intimate space feels particularly right on a rainy evening. Reservations recommended for dinner.
- Ithaca Beer Co. — The brewery’s taproom on Inlet Island has a full food menu, a covered patio, and a dozen beers on tap. The Flower Power IPA is the flagship, and the seasonal rotations are worth trying. Open daily for lunch and dinner.
Shopping and Browsing
The Ithaca Commons
The Ithaca Commons is a two-block pedestrian mall on State Street with heated sidewalks that melt snow and dry rain puddles — a practical feature that makes walking the Commons in wet weather more pleasant than most outdoor shopping streets. The shops lean independent: Buffalo Street Books is one of the best independent bookstores in upstate New York, with a curated selection and a staff that reads what they sell. Angry Mom Records has vinyl, used CDs, and the kind of disorganized-yet-organized atmosphere that record shops are supposed to have. Autumn Leaves Used Books, if you turn off the Commons onto Seneca Street, is a multi-room used bookstore that can absorb an hour without effort.
Ithaca Farmers Market (Covered)
The Ithaca Farmers Market at Steamboat Landing operates Saturdays from April through December in a covered pavilion on the Cayuga Lake waterfront. Rain does not shut it down. The pavilion keeps the vendors and most of the market dry, and the reduced crowds on rainy Saturdays actually make the experience more pleasant — easier to move between stalls, more time to talk to the farmers, and better access to the popular prepared-food vendors. The wood-fired pizza, the Ethiopian sampler, and the Southeast Asian stalls are all worth seeking. Arrive by 10 a.m. for the best selection. The market runs 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in peak season, with shorter hours (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) in late fall.
Rainy-Day Itinerary: A Full Day
For visitors who want a structured plan:
- 9:00 a.m. — Breakfast at Collegetown Bagels on Aurora Street. Coffee, an egg sandwich, and a dry seat by the window.
- 10:00 a.m. — Drive to the Museum of the Earth on Route 96B (5 minutes from downtown). Spend 90 minutes with the geology exhibits and the whale skeleton.
- 12:00 p.m. — Lunch at Moosewood on the Ithaca Commons. Sit upstairs, watch the rain through the windows, eat something with cumin in it.
- 1:30 p.m. — Walk the Commons. Browse Buffalo Street Books. Flip through vinyl at Angry Mom Records. Duck into Autumn Leaves if you need more books.
- 3:00 p.m. — Drive to the Cornell campus (5 minutes). Visit the Johnson Museum of Art. Walk through the A.D. White Library in Uris Hall.
- 5:00 p.m. — If the rain is moderate and you have waterproof gear, drive to Taughannock Falls State Park (15 minutes north) and walk the flat gorge trail to see the falls in full flow. If the rain is heavy, skip this and head to Ithaca Beer Co. for a pint on Inlet Island.
- 7:00 p.m. — Dinner at Just a Taste on the Commons. Small plates, local wine, and a dry ending to a wet day.
For more on what Ithaca offers beyond rainy days, our honest assessment of Ithaca covers the gorges, food scene, and campus in full detail. If you are building a longer trip that includes the broader region, our free things to do in Ithaca guide covers parks, trails, and campus attractions that cost nothing. And for a multi-day itinerary that accounts for weather variability, our long weekend in Ithaca itinerary builds in both outdoor and indoor options across three days.
