Zach Miller is visiting the area for the day and is originally from Binghamton.

How did you come to Ellenville?

We are meeting our in-laws for a hike, a nature walk, and came here. They live downstate.

What do you like about the area?

I like the remoteness of things, how everything isn’t on top of each other, that it’s a bit rural but ultimately in a three-hour radius, you can get where you want to be. We’re from Binghamton and whether you want to go hiking, it’s right there; if you want to go to the beach, it’s right there. You can’t get to the desert in three hours but ultimately any other type of adventure is able to be had.

What are the go-to spots you frequent around here?

I haven’t been anywhere yet in Ellenville, and we haven’t ventured here so much, even in Liberty when we took the exit here. We went to Kerhonkson – we went there once, and there was a place that had vegan pizza and a cidery with a distillery right nearby as well, and that was really good. We went to some farm stand. We try to do fall activities with the in-laws, but there’s not a go-to place, unfortunately. We like trying different things. That’s why we’re like, ‘Oh, that’s a cool bookstore’ [The Common Good].

Is there anything you would improve about the area?

More vegan food options, which is very personal. There are a lot of vegetarian things. If you leave off the cheese that’s vegan, it is a very simple twist on a lot of meals that are out there that could be vegan and then altered to not be vegan. Otherwise, I think on the highways having more restrooms facilities would be great.

If you were to come back here 10 years from now, how do you imagine it would be different?

I hope that a bunch of the [empty] storefronts would be taken by others, whether it’s retail or activity centers, whatever it might be. When they’re offering experiences or food or product, they’d actually be taken with actual occupied buildings, one way or another. Even if they turned into apartments or housing or museums, garages, something other than empty storefronts. I see it all the time in Binghamton.