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Friday, May 25, 2012

Planning a Day Trip to Hershey in Pennsylvania

Indian Echo Caverns in Hummelstown Pennsylvania
Indian Echo Caverns
Last weekend my husband and I decided to take a day trip down to Hershey Pennsylvania and check out a few of their local activities in the area. We headed out the door at about 7am and started seeing the road signs leading to Hershey about an hour later. Once we got into the city limits we just followed the street signs until we got to the Hershey Chocolate Factory.

Once there we quickly got parked and went inside. We first did the free Hershey Chocolate World Factory ride tour which took about 20-25 minutes. It is really cool as you sit in these carts that look like roller coaster carts and they take you through an exhibit to show you how Hershey's Chocolate is made, as well as teach you some history on the company. You'll find additional family-friendly activities that you can enjoy there with some of them being free and other's costing you an admission fee.
Hershey Chocolate World in Hershey Pennsylvania
Hershey Chocolate World
Once we were done with that we headed over to the gift shops and did some shopping and then went to the food court and bought some lunch. Our lunch was really good but what I really enjoyed was my Hershey's ice cream sundae with Hershey's syrup that I enjoyed for dessert. Just be forewarned, food in the food court can be quite pricey, especially for a family of four.
The Hershey Story Museum in Hershey Pennsylvania
The Hershey Story Museum
We then left Hershey's Chocolate World and headed to The Hershey Story Museum and just followed all of the traffic signs along the way. We were there in only a few minutes and parked right outside of the building. We had to pay to get into the museum and thankfully it wasn't too expensive.

Once inside the Museum you will come across a really nice gift shop which we saved for last. We then went into the museum part and took a self-guided tour so that we could really take our time and look at all of the exhibits that they had on display. Overall, it took us about an hour to completely go through the entire museum and then we did our souvenir shopping at the gift shop.
Hershey Kiss Street Lights in Hershey Pennsylvania
Hershey Kiss Street Lights
We left the museum and headed to Indian Echo Caverns which is in Hummelstown which was about a 15 minute drive from the Hershey Museum. You purchase your tickets to tour the Indian Echo Caverns in their gift shop and then wait for the guided tour of the caverns. New tours begin about every 30 minutes so we didn't have to wait long. We then went down a slew of steps and into the caverns led by a very informative guide. It took us about 45-50 minutes to tour the caverns which were absolutely beautiful.
Tanger Outlets in Hershey Pennsylvania
Tanger Outlet in Hershey Pennsylvania
After we were done there...we headed back into Hershey (about a 10 minute drive) so that I could do some quick shopping at the Hershey Outlets (Tanger Outlet in Hershey) and ran into two stores there to pick up a few things. I always try to hit up the children's clothing outlet stores to buy things for my grandchildren. Once we were done there, we headed to Red Robin (located on the property of the outlet mall) and grabbed a quick dinner before heading back home.
Twizzlers Candy Character in Hershey Pennsylvania

Overall, we had a very nice day hanging out in Hershey Pennsylvania and taking tours at the Hershey's Chocolate World, the Hershey's Museum, the tour at Indian Echo Caverns and then some shopping at the Hershey Outlets. If you're planning a day trip down to Hershey, we highly suggest that you check out all four places that we visited and you'll want to plan at least 6-7 hours of time to experience it all.