Hotels in Erie

Erie sits on Lake Erie's southern shore in northwestern Pennsylvania, a mid-sized industrial city that built its living on freight, plastics and manufacturing rather than tourism. Most visitors come for Presque Isle State Park, a sandy peninsula jutting into the lake with beaches, biking trails and genuinely good sunsets, which is the main reason the city shows up on road-trip itineraries at all.

Downtown has a modest but real bayfront with the Maritime Museum and a public dock, though be honest: outside the park and the waterfront strip, Erie is a workaday city with a rough industrial edge and not much built for tourists. Winters are long and lake-effect snow is serious, so summer and early fall are the sensible windows to visit. With only seven hotels in our catalog here, choice is limited rather than overwhelming. Stay near the bayfront or close to Presque Isle if you want lake views and easy access to the beach; it's the one part of Erie that justifies an overnight stop.