I was born and raised in Upstate New York, returned here after college when I was able to negotiate remote work, and suffice to say that it has a special place in my heart. I created Scout Upstate to share that love with you.

In this initial version of the site, in addition to this blog, you will find a curated guide to attractions in the area (browsable by categories or found on a map, and soon by pages for towns and counties) and a calendar of events of interest to both weekend travelers on sojourn from New York City and lifelong local residents. We hope this is of use to you, and we welcome your feedback on how to improve. More content will be coming soon, both deepening our coverage and expanding beyond our current focus of Delaware County to the rest of the Catskills and Hudson Valley region.

This site has been in the works for quite a time, and I’m excited to finally share it with you. Which is not to say we’re finished; in the coming weeks I will be working on improving the design of the site, fixing the bugs that will inevitably pop up when the site is viewed on more screens of different sizes, adding more content, improving loading speed, and adding some new features. There’s a lot to do, and I’d appreciate feedback so I can prioritize.

A special thanks to my sister, Elisabeth, for helping write the descriptions for each attraction in our guide and doing a lot of the data entry and organization for the guide. Without her help this launch would be several months further down the road. And thanks to all of you for being here! I hope you enjoy!

–Christopher Ogden