Off-Campus Community Has More to Offer

Starbucks is located on Main Street in Stroudsburg. Photo Credit / Rebecca Jasulevicz
Starbucks is located on Main Street in Stroudsburg. Photo Credit / Rebecca Jasulevicz
Starbucks is located on Main Street in Stroudsburg.
Photo Credit / Rebecca Jasulevicz

By Kendrick Diaz
SC Staff Writer

Though there is a lot to do at ESU, sometimes campus life can become boring. When it does, exploring what the Poconos and Lehigh Valley have to offer can be a lot of fun, especially for residential students unfamiliar with the area.

Students should definitely check out these places for some off-campus entertainment.

Main Street is the go-to place for close off-campus leisure. Since the University Center’s Starbucks lacks the full menu and cozy seating, friends can walk to a real Starbucks and enjoy the café atmosphere while sipping on coffee, tea, and frappuccinos.

Starbucks patrons can — and should — even try items from the café’s secret menu. If you have a paper due the next day and it’s still not started, a “Liquid Cocaine” — made with four shots of espresso, four pumps of white chocolate syrup, and milk — is the perfect drink to order, especially for addicts.

It is well worth the visit, and it should keep one wired for the whole night. The Living Room is a great place for artsy individuals.

Its walls are decorated with paintings from people around the area, and occasionally poets and aspiring musicians share their work with the neighborhood.

On special occasions, the Living Room sometimes even offers free sweets for supporters.

Also on Main Street, Glare always welcomes hookah enthusiasts. Though it usually attracts a loud clientele — a pro or a con, depending on your perspective — they offer a variety of good flavors, and they have excellent customer service.

One four-hose hookah costs $35, and if Glare is still offering the whiskey flavor, I highly recommend trying it.

If willing to venture outside of Stroudsburg — for this reason making friends with commuter students is always a good idea — definitely check out Saylorsburg for its horror exhibits: Hotel of Horror and Altered Nightmares.

Hotel of Horrors costs $20 alone, and Altered Nightmares costs $15. Together both cost $30, and they are well worth the money according to Lian Mlodzienski.

She said, “The haunted house was worth the $30. I went last year and it was definitely frightening.”

Scare-junkies should definitely make the trip to Saylorsburg before October ends.

Hanging out at Dorney Park for its Halloween Haunt can provide a milder scare. According to its website, it only costs $35.99 plus taxes if one orders online.

In addition to going on rides, people can enjoy several of the park’s horror attractions. Personally, I think they are only scary if one is not acquainted with horror, but they are still enjoyable.

The walk-through areas can be even more frightening than the attractions themselves. Surprisingly, the best scares come from those pretending to be props.

Though the Halloween attractions will end, the Poconos’ winter attractions will open at the end of November.

The Shawnee Mountain Ski Area, open from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, allows skiing and snowboarding enthusiasts to do their thing.

If one is a beginner and wants to learn about skiing and snowboarding, then definitely head over and give it a shot.

The surrounding area has a lot of offer students, so do your own exploring. The Poconos may seem like a small place, but it really is full of stuff to do if one knows where to look.

Email Kendrick at:
kdiaz4@live.esu.edu