So once upon a time, I promised that I would shortly follow up my entry on Cleveland with one detailing easy weekend road trips from our great city. Well here I am, a mere ten months later!, ready to expeditiously fulfill that pledge. (Hey, I don't get paid for this, so whatevs.)
There are times it can feel like we're stranded in the middle of Midwestern nothingness, but as I tend to get restless very easily, I've done my best to discover fun destinations around the area. The following are all accessible within a drive of under four hours from Cleveland.
Amish Country
An hour or two south, we have a large settlement of Amish people living around the Berlin, OH area, and it's a great place to go for a shopping and food getaway. The main street is packed with adorable shops full of crafted goods, and just about all food shops have samples available. My favorite spot for lunch is a little place called Rebecca's Cafe with great soups and salads. You can even visit a traditional Amish farm and take a tour where you'll learn about their daily lives (and if you're lucky like we were, play with a whole yard full of kittens and a barn full of various other animals).
You also have to drive to three main highlights: First is Hershberger's Farm with a petting zoo full of adult and baby goats (sometimes they'll even hop in your lap!), little piglets, chicks, and Big Ben, the largest horse in the county coming in at 19.3 hands. They also have a large fruit market and bakery in the building next door.
Heini's Cheese Chalet is a must-do for cheese lovers... they have ALLL the cheese, from your basic cheddars to ghost pepper to a dozen varieties of cream cheese and so much more. My personal favorite is the smoked horseradish. You can walk up and down the aisles with a toothpick and sample all of them!! I'm usually too full after a visit to even think about lunch for a few more hours (but never too full for more cheese).
Finally, there is Ohio's largest year round Christmas shop called Tis the Season with two stories (really three, including the basement) of decorated trees and so many ornaments. Different sections have different themes from traditional to woodland to religious to patriotic to sea life and on and on.
Cedar Point
Cedar Point, located right on Lake Erie in Sandusky, is one of the best rollercoaster parks in the country with 18 rollercoasters currently in operation.
You've got the classics like Magnum and Millennium Force (the G-force is real!), wooden racing coaster Gemini, the Maverick with tight drops and twists the whole way through, the back and forth catapult coaster Wicked Twister, the Top Thrill Dragster which goes from 0 to 120 in less than 4 seconds, and my favorite, the suspended Raptor, with all sorts of corkscrew turns (this one is worth waiting for the front row), to name a few. There are also smaller thrill rides and a Snoopy kiddie park.
Kalahari
Also in Sandusky is the Kalahari indoor water park which is themed after Africa. The rooms are expensive, but hey, resort-style getaways in Northeast Ohio are limited. They've got a huge indoor area with racing slides, tube slides, an accelerator slide, vortex slides, and body slides, plus a wave pool, basketball pool, water playground for kids, and adult swim-up bar (plus a couple other regular bars scattered around the premises).
Outdoors, you've got more pools, another bar, a zipline, a high ropes course, and an animal enclosure. I've got to recommend against visiting the animals though. They charge about $25 for a bucket of food, to start. They have plenty of species including giraffes, kangaroos, zebras, kookaburras, and more, but the exhibits are extremely bare and it's all in quite a small area. The poor prairie dogs were literally scratching at the ground- they had no dirt to burrow in whatsoever. I enjoyed it the first time I went when I was likely not paying much attention, but the most recent time I visited it left me super depressed.
There's more than just the water park areas too. There's a basement arcade, a few restaurants, a ceramics room, and plenty of other activities. I once was offered a free breakfast buffet voucher by a very nice receptionist, and it was probably the best hotel breakfast I ever had with at least six tables full of different foods from an omelet station to M&M pancakes to smoothies and just so much to choose from.
Also, they usually have baby animals in the lobby which they borrow from zoos, and you can pay for photos with them. We threw down for a picture with the baby tiger on my last visit. And there are trained parakeets which will fly out to grab dollar bills off of you if you hold them up. It's a pretty cute way to discard of your money.
Put-in-Bay
For one more stop in the Sandusky area, you can head to the marina and take the Jet Express to the islands. I'm going to focus on Put-in-Bay, but there's also Kelley's Island nearby. This is a popular summer destination, so I recommend booking a room well in advance, especially if you're going on a holiday weekend. Last time I went for a bachelorette party, we rented a cheaper condo on the next island over, Middle Bass, and just paid for a small boat to take us the short ride to Put-in-Bay.
The island is full of bars, including faux-beach bars and swim-up hotel bars, and it gets pretty rowdy. You can rent a golf cart and drive around the island. There's a little winery and crystal cave on the opposite side as well as other activities besides drinking... but if you're not looking for a drinking holiday, I probably wouldn't recommend Put-in-Bay.
Columbus
Our state capital is only a couple hours south of Cleveland, and it's nice for a change of city scenery. The Short North is home to plenty of bars, there are loads of restaurants to choose from, the German Village has cute cafes and bakeries plus a labyrinth of a book shop called The Book Loft, there's an outdoor fountain playground, and the Easton shopping center is this sprawling outdoor mall (or head to Polaris for shopping as an alternative).
My favorite Columbus food joint is called Dirty Frank's with the best hot dogs, and all can be done veggie. The Fire on the Rhine fire kraut dog and Dog From Hell with pepper mix and cream cheese, both of which will set your mouth on fire, are my picks, and I would pair them with their equally spicy and delicious bloody mary. I mean, you could opt for an option that won't make you cry, but... to each their own.
The Old North Arcade is really good (similar to 16 Bit but with more games), full of free arcade games and interesting cocktails with nerdy names. Kingmakers is a little board game parlor with a wall-length shelf full of all sorts of games to borrow. They also serve drinks, including mead. Columbus has a very LGBTQ-friendly scene as well- Axis nightclub and Union Bar are worth a night out. And my favorite Scottish brewery, Brewdog, also has a Columbus location in the warehouse district!
Columbus has a very nice zoo with the sections separated by continent. The highlights, for me, were the bear exhibits with huge glass panes so you could get right up next to the grizzlies and see the polar bears diving underwater, a savannah-like Africa exhibit, an aquarium with a manatee, a good nocturnal area (always has some of my favorite animals), and a walk-through aviary for every section.
You can also visit COSI, the science center. When I was a kid, I thought this was basically the coolest place in the world. It's got awesome exhibits, very interactive, and the decorations are even pretty (like the ocean themed area with blue lighting and a huge Poseidon statue with fountains). Unfortunately, that's the thing I realized on my visit back as an adult... it is full of kids. I was practically tripping on them. I believe they do adult nights (with booze) which may be more worth checking out unless you have your own spawn.
That said, my favorite bit is this area called Progress where you walk through two recreations of the same city street- one set in 1898 and one in 1960, both with time-appropriate shop windows, technology, vehicles, and more. Other highlights of COSI include a tightrope bike, planetarium, outdoor science park, and lab spaces.
Also, recently, they put in a permanent art installation called Otherworld in an old strip mall outside the city. It's a crazy, trippy labyrinth of amazing rooms and completely worth spending a few hours exploring. If you've ever wanted to walk through a blacklight haunted mansion or crawl under a child's bed to emerge into a fuzzy room and sit in the mouth of a narwhal, this is for you.
Hocking Hills
This state park in southern Ohio has been gaining in popularity over the years as a great nature getaway.
There are countless cabins to rent for a weekend (most with hot tubs), a zipline canopy tour which I did on my first visit, canoeing, horseback riding, and hikes throughout the park.
The Old Man's Cave is a popular spot to start, and you can pass through Ash Cave and Cedar Falls as well. Just grab a group, rent a cabin, and have an awesome relaxing weekend away in nature.
Dearborn
I haven't seen a whole lot of Michigan, but I have had to venture to Detroit twice to visit the Italian consulate there, and I mostly just hung out at the MGM Grand during the first stay.
Which, admittedly, was not terrible.
The second time, I stayed outside the city in Dearborn, Michigan, and took the chance to visit Greenfield Village, another historic throwback town like Hale Farm on a much larger scale.
You can take a ride around in a Model T car, visit working farms, have old-timey cocktails at the tavern on the village green, play croquet, visit the town with weaving, a sawmill, silk mill, pottery, glassworks, and more, visit Thomas Edison's Menlo Park complex, ride a historic carousel from 1913, offload your kids at the playground, and see the oldest windmill in the US, the cycle shop of the Wright Brothers, and tons of old homes including those of Robert Frost and Noah Webster. I've barely named a fourth of the attractions. It's expansive and super cute.
If you are into cars, you may also want to visit the Henry Ford museum adjacent to Greenfield Village.
Mohican
For a fun spot to camp and kayak in nature, you should hit up Mohican... especially if you like to party. You can rent kayaks (or canoes, or rafts) to float down the Mohican River (we did the 14 mile journey), and it's just a party on the water. People floating around with coolers, drinking beer, handing out jello shots, kids patrolling intersections with water guns and balloons. Honestly just a blast!
Nelson Ledges
Hippies and non-hippies alike (but especially the hippies) can appreciate Nelson Ledges Quarry Park in Garrettsville. For families, I'd recommend an off-weekend to just chill out and swim, but for those that like festivals, hit up one of the many during the summer. There's a wide variety- a Grateful Dead weekend, two Badfish (Sublime cover) weekends, an EDM music weekend, and more. My favorite is Classics weekend which includes some fantastic cover bands like Kashmir (Led Zeppelin), Several Species (Pink Floyd), Limelight (Rush), Ball & Chain (Janis Joplin), and others that have rotated through the years like a Johnny Cash cover and the much missed (by me) Beatles cover.
It's gotten a lot stricter over the years during festival weekends and much more crowded, but if you can get past the new rules like assigned campsites, it's still a lot of fun. Hit up the quarry to swim during the day, lay on the beach, go jump off the cliff, shop the stalls, and most definitely get a few slices of Disco Pizza (there's sauce and cheese in the crust!), then watch the whole place transform into a trippy wonderland and get lost in the woods full of glow sticks and laser lights at night.
Great Serpent Mound
I feel compelled to mention this because it's just kind of an odd but cool attraction Ohio has. Located in Adams County (where? Yeah, I barely know either and I've been there), the Great Serpent Mound is an effigy mound shaped as a snake that is 1348 feet long and up to three feet high. It was built by natives anywhere up to 1000 years ago, either by the Adena or Fort Ancient cultures.
Now, while this is pretty neat, a word of warning... it is in the absolute middle of freaking nowhere. I thought I would "stop by" on a drive to Columbus coming back from Kentucky, and by that I mean make a detour well over an hour out of the way. It's about two hours south from Columbus and over an hour east from Cincinnati. I had no phone signal finding it and my GPS was very lost. At one point, it took me on this backcountry gravel and dirt road winding through woods and passing nothing but dilapidated barns. Also, it was December, and there was not a single human soul aside from myself at the park (I politely ignored the request for an $8 parking fee above a box outside the closed museum).
If you have the time for it, then great. But you can be in and out of the park in 20 minutes, really, unless you go during museum opening hours and want to read up on it (although the museum was basically a tiny cabin). There's a path around the mound and a rickety wooden observation tower you can climb for a full view. That's all of it.
Pittsburgh
I've grown up with Pittsburgh being my second home city as my parents grew up there and all of my relatives still live in the area. Downtown driving is a bit of a nightmare, but I love the tunnels and steep winding hills. Head to the South Side for a night out and take the Duquesne Incline cable car up to the top of Mt. Washington for views of the city. Hit up a Steelers or Penguins game! Visit the casino. Visit my grandma! (Don't do that, she will feed you pierogies but also might make you cry.)
Or spend your day at Kennywood, a very nostalgic and fun-filled amusement park with a few coasters but more novelty rides. Noah's Ark is a slightly creepy ship walkthrough (and my longtime favorite attraction at the park), The Exterminator is an indoor rollercoaster in the dark, the Jackrabbit and Racer are historical wooden coasters, the Pittsburgh Plunge will leave you soaked, and the Phantom's Revenge is the prime rollercoaster at the park going 85 mph. I still haven't quite forgiven the park for replacing the classic Old Mill boat ride full of skeletons with the horrendous "Garfield's Nightmare", but I can look past it.
Geneva on the Lake
About an hour's drive east of Cleveland, you'll reach the wine country of Geneva with accompanying retro waterside strip Geneva on the Lake.
Geneva on the Lake is a serious throwback. You could easily imagine you had stepped back into a bygone era walking the strip past the old wooden arcades, offbeat antique and junk shops, classic cars, candy shops, and 50s style streetside fast food joints like Eddie's Grill or Zeppe's. There's mini golf, the child friendly Adventure Zone with go karts and bumper boats, and local favorites like Grumpy's lemonade (where I would like to adopt Grumpy himself as a grandfather), Madsen Donuts, and Katie's Korner ice cream.
There are bars up and down the strip, some with outdoor barstools, a few with karaoke, occasional live music, patios with views over the lake, and some with a clubbier vibe. Pop in and out of them all. The town is also very biker friendly, so you'll find a few bars geared towards the biker crowd. For accommodation, I've stayed at Anchor Motel both times I've been to visit which is on the eastern end of the strip and walking distance to everything, but there are plenty of motels and cottage rentals all up and down the road.
There are lots of mom and pop restaurants to choose from, but you MUST go eat breakfast at Sunrise Cafe at least once. It's cramped and tiny and the kitchen is fully a part of the restaurant so the cooks are right there interacting with you, but the draw is that the staff are hilariously irreverent and downright rude at times. They'll treat you like any random piece of trash that's walked into their home and asked for breakfast. The food is great and the banter is better. You'll also enjoy the inappropriate signage all over the walls. They won me over the second I first peered into their restaurant and they yelled at me to either come in or leave, and only solidified my devotion the next time when they grabbed my hand to pray for the yuppies with babies parked out front to please keep walking.
The other massive draw of Geneva are the wineries. There is one right on the Geneva on the Lake strip- the Old Firehouse Winery. You can order a very reasonably priced bottle and sit out on the deck in the sunshine listening to live music followed by a ride on the old ferris wheel by the lake. Take a drive around Geneva then and stop at a few others on the wine trail. There are no shortage of them. I enjoyed the views at the Lake House Inn, but my absolute favorite was the South River Vineyard located in an old church with a beautiful patio looking out over the vineyards.
West Virginia
The capital of West Virginia, Charleston, is less than 4 hours from Cleveland, a tiny city with a nice waterfront area. From there, it's easy to hit gorgeous wilderness areas. I recommend Cathedral Falls and Kanawha Falls on the way to the New River Gorge Bridge. You should also definitely hit some distilleries while you're in Appalachian territory.
New River Gorge Bridge
Cathedral Falls
The Alleghenies
About a 2-3 hour drive into Pennsylvania will bring you to the Allegheny National Park. This is a great spot to get lost in nature with tons of hiking trails and kayaking opportunities. Rimrock Overlook and the Kinzua Dam area was where we were nearest to, but I also know on the eastern side of the park there is the Kinzua Bridge which looks like a gorgeous spot.
Rimrock Overlook
We rented an awesome cabin on Air BnB called Peace of the River in Irvine for our base there. For 6 people, it was super affordable and so spacious with a hot tub on the deck and a beautiful patio right on the river. If you don't rent a cabin, you can always camp out with plenty of spots to choose from in the woods. It was a great weekend getaway.
Cincinnati
It's under a 4 hour drive from Cleveland to Cincinnati, Ohio's southernmost big city right on the border of Kentucky, yet somehow it took me until this past year to finally make a couple visits down to see it. There are some great bars and breweries to visit, my personal favorite being Urban Artifact which is located in an old church. They make fantastic sours. I can vouch for a good time out on the Northside. Get some shopping in at Findlay Market. Cincinnati is also famous for Skyline Chili which doesn't hold a lot of interest for me as a vegetarian, but judging by the crowd size in their premier location at 2 AM on a Friday night, I'm guessing it must be good.
You can also enjoy a day out at Kings Island just outside the city. The amusement park is owned by the same company as Cedar Point, and while I'll tell you there is really no competition when it comes down to the two, Kings Island is still a fun day out. Also, bonus?! Admission to their huge water park, Soak City, is included in the entry price!
The Finger Lakes
A tiny bit further, it's a 5 hour drive to the Finger Lake region from Cleveland. A group of friends and I camped at Seneca Lake at a place called Back Achers, and it was an absolutely gorgeous spot. We had a site on a hill overlooking the water and lucked out with 80 degree weather in October.
I highly recommend visiting Watkins Glen State Park with an endless line of gorgeous waterfalls to see. Afterwards, you can hit one of the area's many, many wineries or breweries to unwind.
Grist Iron Brewery
Ohiopyle/Fallingwater
Venturing one last time into Pennsylvania, 3 1/2 hours from Cleveland at the southern part of the state you will find a little town called Ohiopyle. This is a cheap vacation destination as well- I believe we rented a very nice two bedroom cabin for well under $100 per night.
The reason for visiting was white water rafting. There's a company called White Water Adventures who will take you out on the Lower Yough River through the rapids. It was my first time, so we went with the beginner group, and it was alright. The area is very pretty, but I'm just not sure rafting is my thing (whitewater sledding, on the other hand, I highly recommend). There were a lot of rafts in our group and it wasn't too challenging, but there were still a decent amount who overturned in the water, and I'm sure the more advanced groups will take you on wilder rapids. It was a nice few hours out anyway learning the basics, navigating the water, and enjoying the sun.
The reason I actually highly recommend Ohiopyle, however, is that you can make an easy 10 minute drive to Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's famous architectural creation. The house is so beautiful and picturesque! You can tour the inside, and the features are just so interesting. The outer walls in the living room are all windows, every patio looks out on the trees and water, the fireplace is built from the rock outside, stairs lead down to the river, and the family who owned it (the Kaufmanns) had an extremely diverse book collection and artwork like Picasso paintings in the guesthouse. There was no need for air conditioning because of the natural cooling from the water. It was really a remarkable home.
So, next time you're feeling restless in the Cleve, remember that there are plenty of easily accessible options for day and weekend trips to escape and recharge. You can even go a bit further afield and head towards Louisville (entry soon to come), Indiana, Niagara Falls, or Chicago if you're feeling adventurous. Hop in your car and explore!
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