Hershey is a great day trip even if you don’t go to Hershey Park!

As someone who grew up in Baltimore County and had a mother who liked to go to Pennsylvania, I spent a lot of time in my childhood in Hershey.

A lot of companies in Baltimore County also have a tendency to give their employees free tickets to Hershey Park every year, and so we would all pile into the van to go to Hershey Park.

The only one who really liked the park though was my sister, as she enjoyed rollercoasters. My mother and I would just wander around and soak in the vibes.

These days, we don’t really go to the amusement park when we come up to Hershey. We have a tendency to find things that we want to do that somehow are in this area, and this time we came up with a mission.

We were here in November, but if you’re coming at a different time of the year, I would highly recommend checking out the Hershey Gardens, which are located across from the main rain and amusement park. We did that the last time we came, and it was worth the admission price!

Here’s what we did this trip.

Outlet shopping is always solid if you’re in need of something.

One of the biggest draws to the area outside of the Hershey Park zone are the Tanger Outlets, which are conveniently located down the street from the park.

I will admit right off the bat: I think the Hershey outlets are a lot smaller compared to their Lancaster counterparts (Lancaster has a massive set of outlets, and you’ll need two days just to get through them), but I feel like the goods were more abundant and better quality than the ones in Lancaster.

We were agreeing about this as we browsed through the stores because we had gone to Lancaster a month prior on a different day trip, and the inventory was different this time around.

I found a shirt I had wanted in the Lancaster Banana Republic marked down to an insane price. At Lancaster, the shirt was on sale for $38, as it had been reduced from a price of $80. I found it in the Hershey Banana Republic for only $11.

You have no idea how glad I was to see it there, as I kind of wanted the shirt.

Anyways, we spent several hours at the outlets. None of us are big shoppers and really purchased anything this trip, but it certainly was a good time to browse if you were looking for items that were in-between seasons, like the shirt I had bought.

Now in November a lot of the S/S merchandise was on sale for major reductions off the original prices.

An unexpected change in dinner plans.

After the outlets, we headed out to dinner and a brief visit to Chocolate World. It was a Saturday night, and while we wanted to eat at Piazza Sorrento, we wandered in at 5 PM and were told there was no room at all unless we had made a reservation.

The hostess didn’t even give us a wait time—that’s how booked we assumed it was. We were so bummed out because the food had looked really good online, yet we had no idea we should’ve made a reservation.

Defeated, we Googled another Italian spot nearby and managed to end up at the Hershey Italian Lodge. This was the most interesting place I’ve been to for a while—we had no idea where to find it, then followed an elderly couple inside.

There, we stood for a bit before a teenager sat us, told us that because we didn’t have a membership we couldn’t buy alcohol (which we were totally fine with), and then we realized all of the pasta was only $10 with an appetizer.

My joke was that this was the only place that inflation hadn’t hit yet. I chose an Italian Wedding Soup, which was pretty decent, and then a spaghetti with marinara sauce and a single meatball.

It wasn’t the best food I’ve had in a while, but it certainly was decent for $10—the portion was also really big. We were so confused by the reviews that said it took a while to get anything, as we got our food and were finished in less than an hour.

Chocolate World has a free ride we always go on.

People tend to go to Chocolate World in order to shop, but not us. We always go to Chocolate World just for the fifteen minute ride that seems like it hasn’t changed my entire lifetime.

I’ve been to Hershey many times in my life, and we always go to Chocolate World every single time for this ride, and the only change I can vaguely recall are the updates with the screens/technology. Everything else is somehow exactly the same.

On this Saturday, at 3 PM, we waited thirty minutes in line to go on Chocolate World. And guess what? Still the same.

We collected our Hershey chocolate bars at the end and then headed to the cafeteria. I usually try something different each time I’m there, and this time was the smores.

My sister and I split a Reese’s cup smores, and while the graham crackers tasted mildly stale, it was alright. It was better than the milkshake I got last year, which tasted terrible.

We saw Derek Hough live at the Hershey Theater.

This was actually the main reason we came to Hershey this day: my sister had bought tickets to Derek Hough’s dancing tour.

We arrived a little after 6 PM and missed the big line to get in, and because of that we entered the theater immediately.

This is a gorgeous historic theater, and it reminded me of the government buildings in Washington D.C. with its design. I spend a lot of time in Broadway theaters in NYC, and this was a bit different in terms of the style compared to those.

We had balcony seats, but if I’m going to be honest, I would not recommend the balcony at the Hershey Theater. It was terrible in terms of design—you’re directly behind another person, and we complained of not being able to see the stage because someone’s head is in the way.

I usually sit back row balcony at the Broadway theaters and never have a problem (minus the Lyceum, I hate the balcony at that theater), but this theater had terrible sight lines.

Derek Hough and his crew were pretty good though! I hadn’t been to a dance concert like this, and I think if it had been longer than two hours (it was forty minutes, twenty minute intermission, then another forty minutes), I wouldn’t have been very interested to keep watching.

There were breaks where he would talk to the audience, but it was kind of annoying because there were some preteens behind us who kept calling him sexy and screaming their lungs out right in our ears, even when it was kind of inappropriate to do so.

All in all, I enjoyed the performance. My favorites were the Latin dances and the waltz dedicated to the Dancing with the Stars judge who recently passed.

I’m not sure I would pay good money to see this again though. Feels like a one and done kind of deal to me.

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