The Tonawandas work well as a quiet base for the busier sights around Buffalo and Niagara. Niagara Falls is about 20 minutes' drive north — the American Falls observation deck at Prospect Point and the Cave of the Winds boardwalk along the river are the must-dos. Downtown Buffalo is the same drive south, with Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House, the Albright-Knox Gallery, and the original Anchor Bar (home of the Buffalo wing) all within a few miles.
Inland, the Erie Canal flight of locks at Lockport is half an hour east — a tour boat takes you through the 19th-century Flight of Five lock system, the engineering marvel that made the canal possible. Old Fort Niagara, on Lake Ontario at the canal's outlet, is a well-preserved 18th-century French-and-Indian-War-era fort with cannon firings several times a day in summer.