Gotcha, that makes sense.

I'm not too familiar with Upstate NY. I'm more familiar with New England. I know Ithaca is home to Cornell University so it has a lot of young people and I've heard it's a nice college town.

I've heard Binghamton used to not be as nice but I think it's gotten better? Don't quote me on that.

Don't know anything about Elmira.

You could probably knock out all those places if you took a few days road trip to check them out.

Edit: Upstate NY is a large area so you could also try asking in one of the NY subreddits for some more guidance

Edit 2: the areas of NY you mentioned aren't actually near the Adirondacks. They aren't flat, but the Dacks are further Northeast and are significantly bigger