Pennsylvania has no shortage of destinations where you can take in history, culture, wonders of nature, and, let’s call them oddities.

The commonwealth is also home to plenty of sites where you can have the living daylights scared out of you during spooky season, whether you’re interested in experiencing some of the most famous haunted attractions in the country, hearing scary stories rooted in history on a classic ghost tour, or exploring regional haunts that combine local lore and unusual sites with classic jump scares. 

Our Kalena Thomhave has a roundup of Pennsylvania’s best haunted houses, ghost tours, and spooky experiences in this story.

You might check out a scenic view at NEPA’s Big Pocono State Park. (PoconoMountains.com)

Scaling a mountain or embarking on a multi-day backpacking trip might sound thrilling, but adventures can also be simpler and smaller—and possible to fit into an ordinary Wednesday.

This is the idea behind microadventures. British adventurer Alastair Humphreys, who coined the term, describes them as “simple expeditions and challenges [that] are close to home, affordable, and easy to organize.”

They remind us that “adventure is all around us, at all times,” Humphreys writes, and make adventure “accessible to normal people, in normal places.”

In fact, embarking on microadventures in NEPA, or northeastern Pennsylvania, might have you convinced the area isn’t so normal after all. With miles of trails, sparkling waterfalls, and stunning vistas, there’s plenty to explore without traveling far or taking several days off.

We’ve put together six ideas for setting off on a microadventure in NEPA.

Keep an eye out in your inbox Tuesday for a special edition of the Keystone newsletter previewing the key races on the ballot in Pennsylvania ahead of Election Day, Nov. 3. In the meantime, a few midterm-releated stories.

• Environmental concerns, health risks, and shady dealings are driving voters on both sides of the aisle to push back against the development of AI-focused data centers in Pennsylvania. We take a deep dive on the data center backlash in this story.

• Local governments across the state are also dealing with bipartisan backlash over automatic license plate readers like Flock cameras. Here’s four big reasons why.

• If you still need to apply for a mail-in ballot in Pennsylvania, the deadline is Tuesday at 5 p.m. Here’s what you need to know.

(Mitch Werley)

Mitch Werley of Douglassville shared this photo of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon in Tioga County, yet another reminder that I really do need to get there one of these days.

LET’S SEE YOUR PENNSYLVANIA—whether it’s a gorgeous sunset, sparkling fall foliage, or something purely Pennsylvania, like an intersection with a Wawa at one corner, a Sheetz at another corner, and a horse and buggy parked outside a Rutter’s at another corner.

Send us your photos with your name, location, and a brief description of what you’re sharing.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter was written by Patrick Berkery with stories from Kalena Thomhave. It was edited by Crystal Niforos.

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