An initial pass down Saratoga Springs’ main thoroughfare suggests the town has seen better days, but don’t assume that Saratoga Springs is just some stuffy living-history museum stuck on a Gilded Age promise of horses, health, and history. Modern-day Gatsbies still come to be seen, and to have a flutter, at the Saratoga Race Course, the country’s oldest continually operating track. You can still find those same charming Victorian inns, as well as luxuriate in grand spa and convention-equipped resorts that speak to the city’s proximity to the Northeast’s major metropolitan hubs. Want to lose the crowds? Don’t forget Saratoga Springs is a stone’s throw from Lake George and millions of acres of pristine Adirondacks wilderness. We’ll raise a glass of bubbling spring water to that.