Trout Dip And River Tubing: How Model Katie Muirhead Unwinds In New York State

Katie Muirhead initially made the move to New York City for only a few months. Nine years later—and still living in the city—this Sydney-raised model and copywriter has well and truly found her place. 

“New York City is a world unto itself,” she says, “I fell in love with what the city and the surrounding areas had to offer.”

As a model and creative, it's in the women of New York that she finds her eternal inspiration for style and practicality, with their integrity for enduring fashion. “It's a true fashion capital both in an inspirational sense and also a very big commercial sense,” she says. 

But when she wants to unwind, Muirhead is all about escaping the busy streets and heading straight to the country. "People don’t realise how huge New York State is, or how easy it is to reach nature," she adds. 

During COVID, when she couldn’t return to Australia, Muirhead found solace in the Catskills, a forested, mountainous region northwest of the city in Greene County, and bought a fixer-upper home. 

“It was a real labour of love,” she says. “Also, a huge appreciation for an area that's very full of history.”

Even music history. Her home was 10 minutes from Bethel, the site of 1969’s Woodstock festival. She doesn’t have the house anymore, but still visits the Catskills whenever she wants to reset.

“Every time we get out of the car, it's like, my god, I can breathe again,” she says. “The air’s so fresh. I feel human. Time just moves differently.”

If you’ve got wheels, Muirhead says, hit the home of fly fishing, the western Catskills, especially Sullivan County, a hidden gem with beautiful towns like Livingston Manor and Narrowsburg.

“It really just feels like you're in another world, it's not ultra touristy,” she says. 

Gushing about the lush growing regions and produce, in summer, she’s making tracks to the farmers’ markets for tomatoes. “Honestly, the tomatoes from Upstate New York are insane,” she says.

But in winter, she’s headed straight to Roscoe—also known as Trout Town USA, for smoked trout dip paired with a crisp beer.

Muirhead is in awe of the different landscapes—one of her favourite nature escapes is further upstate in the Adirondack Mountains, which span over 100 peaks including Mount Marcy, New York’s highest point.

It’s another world in the neighbouring 1000 Islands region, with generational family lakehouses and little islands where she and her friends head for a spot of classic American grilling. For Muirhead, it's “heaven on earth."

“Totally different scenery,” she says. “It feels different to the Catskills, and much closer to Canada.”

Another American pastime in the Catskills she’s fallen in love with? Tubing. Just friends, beers and food, hooking tubes together for perfect summer hours floating down the Delaware River.

“I love that I can live in the biggest, most bustling city in the world, but in the rest of the state, you can just choose your own adventure,” she says. “You can find a place that feels like home.”

Discover even more tastes and experiences waiting for you on a New York State holiday here.

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Images: Katie Muirhead.