Rensselaer City, county seat of Rensselaer County in New York State, is the place according to local folklore, where the song “Yankee Doodle” was written by a British doctor whilst watching the troops parade. Rensselaer City has quite a military history and in 1777 saw a battle take place at nearby Bennington between the US revolutionaries and the British, a battle which played a significant role in winning independence. Rensselaer is built on the site originally bought by Dutchman Kiliaen van Rensselaer from the Mohican Indians. The Dutch played a significant role in the colonial days, and Craillo State Historic Site is testament to that role. It is another local place of interest, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists each year who come to see this wonderful museum reflecting early Dutch colonial history. The ideal place to stay when visiting this region is in one of the many good budget hotels in Rensselaer City close by the Hudson River.

Rensselaer County is full of beautiful places to visit including the town of Troy, where places of interest include the “Children’s Museum of Science and Technology”, famous for its Digistar ll Planetarium, the only one of its kind in the north east. Troy is known as the gateway to the New York canal system, and has some superb scenery. The cheap hotels in Rensselaer City make excellent places to stay and use as a base to tour this lovely county.