Travel to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Travel with Amateur Traveler Podcast

Host Chris Christensen interviews Chris Barley about the diverse travel opportunities in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The episode covers

Key takeaways

• Lancaster County is a major hub for refugee resettlement, with a rate 20 times higher than the national average.
• The Lancaster Central Market is the longest continuing in-service farmer's market in the United States, established in 1730.

Main topics

• Amish and Mennonite culture
• Lancaster City food scene

Notable quotes

A lot of the world is, in fact, in Lancaster.

Conclusion

The episode serves as an enriching guide for travelers seeking a blend

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) This episode is sponsored by Smart Travel, a new podcast from NerdWallet. You know that one friend who always finds the best travel deals, picks the right cards, and somehow ends up in first class for the price of coach? Smart Travel is like that friend, but in podcast form. They cover all things finance, like which travel cards earn their keep, and which are just heavy, shiny metal. The quick math for knowing when to pay with points or just swipe the credit card. planning group trips that won't ruin your budget or your friendships. If you haven't heard the story about friends who won't speak to each other after a one-week vacation together, buy me a Diet Coke sometime and I'll tell you. The nerds at NerdWallet know this stuff better than me, and that's why I feel great about recommending the Smart Travel podcast. After all, we nerds have to stick together. Travel smarter and spend less with the help from NerdWallet. Follow Smart Travel wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (0:57) Hey, it's Christopher Kimball from Milk Street Radio. Sounds like I'm bragging, and I am. We're the number one most downloaded food podcast in America. You know, Milk Street Radio travels the world in search of the very best food stories. You'll hear about smuggling eels on the black market, the secret intelligence of plants, and insider tips to eating in Paris. And every week, listeners call in with their toughest culinary mysteries. Discover a world of food stories by searching your podcast app for Milk Street Radio. Speaker 3 (1:27) Amateur Traveler, episode 1015. Today, Amateur Traveler talks about farms and markets, railroads and antiques, quilts, and the Amish as we go to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler. Let's talk about Lancaster. Speaker 3 (1:49) I'd like to welcome to the show Chris Barley, originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which will be relevant here in a minute, a high school Spanish teacher from New York City, and he has come to talk to us about Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Chris, welcome to the show. Speaker 2 (2:03) Thank you so much, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here. Speaker 3 (2:07) So you're the one who pitched me Lancaster. We did an episode on Lancaster way, way back in the archives, Speaker 1 (2:13) back Speaker 3 (2:14) before you were a listener to the show, I think 20 years ago or so. What's your connection with Lancaster? First of all, we say you Speaker 2 (2:20) were from there. Correct. So that's right. I am from Lancaster. And I do have to say that if you are from Lancaster, you don't say Lancaster. You don't pronounce that. You say Lancaster. I was going to ask. Exactly. You know a local from a non-local if they say Lancaster. But if they say... Lancaster than any other non-Lancaster native. So first thing to know about Speaker 3 (2:40) Lancaster. It's a shibboleth. Okay. Speaker 2 (2:41) It sure is. It sure is. So I did myself grow up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And I say Lancaster County because it's important to distinguish their Lancaster city. And then there's the county. I grew up in the western part of the county on a tobacco and dairy farm of all things. And I, as a kid, Went to school there all the way from kindergarten all the way to the 12th grade. And I decided as a kid, you know what? I want to get off this farm. So I ended up studying languages, lived in D.C. and have been living in New York City for the last 20 or so years. But my sole purpose as a child was to get out of Lancaster because I wanted to explore the world. Now, as an adult, I realize a lot of the world is, in fact, in Lancaster. It's a very diverse place. And I go back quite often to visit family there. And over the years, it's really become a place that I've grown to love and love talking about and love trying new restaurants and exploring and talking about Lancaster with all the people that I want to experience the great place that it in fact is. Excellent. So first of all, a tobacco Speaker 3 (3:50) dairy farm, I'm assuming those are two separate things. They're not doing spoke beef, for instance. Speaker 2 (3:55) That is correct. Speaker 2 (3:58) That is correct. The tobacco, interestingly enough, there's a lot of tobacco grown in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It's a very manual, very labor-intensive type of work. And a lot of Amish people that are in Lancaster still grow it. And then the dairy farm on which I grew up was a completely different endeavor. And why should someone go to Lancaster? So someone should go to Lancaster for many reasons. First of all, there is a plethora of things to do in Lancaster. There is culture. I think a lot of people think of Lancaster as the Amish and perhaps outlet malls, and that could not be the truth. Lancaster has really, particularly in the last 10 years or so, become a mecca for foodies. There are lots of great opportunities for antiquing, lots of great history, beautiful nature. Another reason I think Lancaster is such a great destination is its proximity to places like New York, Washington, D.C. Baltimore, Philadelphia. In fact, two Amtrak lines run right through Lancaster. One is the Pennsylvania that starts in New York and ends in Pittsburgh. The other one is the Keystone Express, which is a New York to Harrisburg train. So it's very easily accessible from a lot of cities in the Northeast. And I think Lancaster City can be a destination in its own right if you have just a day or two or a long weekend. And then, of course, if you want to extend that time, Lancaster County itself has a lot of other great things to see. And another thing that I think a lot about when traveling is scale. So I think it's always nice to have lots of options in a place. You've got Lancaster City, which is a great medium-sized town of about 50,000 people or so. And then you've got lots of other great small towns, which are neighboring Lancaster City and Lancaster County that can also be visited. So you've really got a little bit of something for everyone in Lancaster. Okay. And what itinerary are you going to recommend for us? Absolutely. So what I would recommend is starting out in Lancaster City. And I think the best way to do it is from a Saturday to a Saturday. You can start on Saturday. And I say that because you have to start a Saturday morning in Lancaster City at Lancaster Central Market, which is the United States' longest continuing in-service farmer's market, in fact. I believe it was started in 1730, if I'm not mistaken. And lots of great local farmers, Amish, Mennonite, and English farmers, as they call them, which doesn't mean that they're from England, but means that they are now in Amish. And in this market, you have great stands. You've just got a lot of great, you get a real good sense of what Lancaster is all about, the sort of agricultural backbone. of Lancaster County. Around the market, there's a great coffee shop called Passenger Coffee, which is almost on Penn Square, which is in the center of downtown Lancaster. So once you've gotten your bearings in that part of the city of downtown Lancaster, you can then head over to the Southern Market, which is a great place for lunch. It was actually voted the second best food hall in the United States by USA Today in, I believe, 25 or 2026. And that's just your morning in Lancaster. Really starting in the city in downtown Lancaster. When we're in the food hall, do you Speaker 3 (7:22) have Speaker 2 (7:23) a Speaker 3 (7:23) favorite? Speaker 2 (7:24) Here is a confession, Chris. I have yet to have visited Southern Market, sadly. And I've really gotten flack from that from my family members who say it's such a great vibe. It reminded them of like the Boqueria or the Mercado de San Miguel in Spain, in Barcelona and Madrid, respectively. Go to different vendors and pick up some food and just have a really great lunch there. Grab a beer or grab an alcoholic beverage of your choice if you're so inclined. All of this, by the way, is within walking distance. So that's the other great thing about Lancaster City as a destination. If you want to do just the city itself, you don't need a car. If you're coming in on Amtrak, you can rely on Ubers or other form, other taxis or your own two feet for that matter. I would then say on a Saturday afternoon, after doing the kind of food-based morning, there's a great museum, the DeMuth Museum. Charles DeMuth was an American modern painter who lived in the late 18 and early 1900s. And just a few blocks from Central Market and Southern Market, there's a great museum that has his work, as well as other local artists and Lancaster-related artists. That's a great cultural... offering in downtown Lancaster. And then if you need a little bit of retail therapy in your life, you can then walk to Gallery Row, which is very close to Central Market. It's the 100 block of North Prince Street, and there's lots of great little galleries and little boutiques and other sorts of things that you can find in that street. Also, there's another little corridor called North Queen Street. It's the 300 block where there's more artisans, local shops. I believe that there is a little antique mart in a sort of small warehouse of sorts. And it's just really pleasant to walk around and take it all in. So that would be a great day just in Lancaster City itself. And then Lancaster has, as I mentioned earlier, not just great local Amish food, but it has become quite a good food scene. And in fact, there are two restaurants that are phenomenal that I would recommend. One is called Luca, and it's a great Italian restaurant, not in downtown Lancaster, but not too far from the center of the city. It would be a brisk walk, but still a nice walk. And what's great about that restaurant and really any of the good restaurants in Lancaster is that they are sourcing mostly local food and local produce. So you feel like you're in an Italian restaurant. You could be anywhere in Italy, very regional. They have a really amazing, I believe it's a Neapolitan style oven where they make their pizzas. And there's another great spot called Callaloo, which is a modern Caribbean restaurant. If you feel like venturing out a little bit and not necessarily going down the Italian route. Speaker 3 (10:17) But before we get too far in, Speaker 2 (10:19) I Speaker 3 (10:20) think most of our listeners know what you're talking about when you say the Amish. or the Mennonites, but I don't want to assume that they do. Speaker 2 (10:29) As Speaker 3 (10:30) someone who grew up in the area, do you want to do just a quick definition? We're talking about two different Christian sects that have a few different practices than your traditional mainline churches, tend to be less technology forward, for instance. Speaker 2 (10:48) Absolutely. Yes. So the Amish and the Mennonites are integral to the identity of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In fact, the Amish in Lancaster, it's the largest group of Amish people living anywhere in any county in the United States. So the Amish do not drive cars. They use horses and buggies. They almost always live in very rural areas on their farms. And they are an Anabaptist sect. founded in Switzerland in the late 1600s. In fact, the Mennonites came first. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. They did. And one of their big tenets was they did not believe in infant baptism. They believed that adults should choose to be baptized. And somewhere between 16 and 23 is when most Amish will choose baptism and choose full entry into the Amish church, if you will. And the Amish maintain a very, what they would even call a very plain lifestyle. So they wear solid colors, lots of black. Women will wear prayer bonnets. Married men and men that are fully in the church will wear beards. They will don beards. They won't shave. And they're mostly involved in agricultural type work, carpentry, and things of the such. The Mennonites, on the other hand, also are very much involved in agriculture and so forth. Again, different sects of the Mennonites. Some are very conservative and they may even appear to be Amish. And then there are some that are much more progressive, if you will. They'll drive cars and may look like someone who is living fully in the 20, 21st century. Though I know one Speaker 3 (12:28) of the groups in the Mennonites was the Black Bumper Mennonites, for instance, who would drive cars. you're not supposed to be showy. And so they would paint over the chrome in the cars or the chrome in the bumpers historically. And that was a group that I know was in Ohio for sure. Speaker 2 (12:49) But Speaker 3 (12:49) again, similar sort of don't be showy, don't wear things that are ostentatious, wear things that are more plain. Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:57) Correct. And the Amish too also. Just two other interesting things. They really value humility and reject this idea of pride and showiness. And they believe that non-resistance and pacifism are also very much part of their ethos. So they will not fight any wars that stick very much to their families, their local communities. They will, however, be driven. So don't be surprised when you come to Lancaster if you see a group of Amish workmen or families in a big van. Being driven by a chauffeur doesn't