Top Ten Things to do in Columbus, Ohio
Ok, here’s the deal. You’ve got a visitor from out of town. They’ve never been to Columbus. You want to show them a good time. Where do you take them, and what do you suggest they do while they’re here?
You’ve made your suggestions, and here’s the results!
The Top 10 Things to do While Visiting Columbus, Ohio
1) Stroll Through the Short North - Everyone seems to universally agree. The Short North is THE neighborhood to visit when you’re in Columbus. Go during a Gallery Hop if possible (first saturday of every month) but any day or night is a great time in the Short North. Be sure to hit a few of the art galleries, a few of the stores, and a few of the restaurants and bars. Special mentions go to Betty’s Fine Food and Spirits, The Surly Girl Saloon, the Bristol Bar, Skully’s Music Diner, Rosendale’s, and Goodale Park.
2) Lunch at the North Market - A short walk south of the Short North you’ll find the North Market. A great spot to shop for food, gifts, and try a variety of ethnic foods for lunch or to go. Special mentions to go Jeni’s Ice Cream and Pure Imagination Chocolatier.
3) Stroll Through German Village - This historic community on the southern end of downtown Columbus is filled with beautifully restored homes as well as a few well placed shops, stores, restaurants and more. Special mentions to go the Bookloft, Schiller Park, Banana Bean Cafe, and First Watch.
4) Tour the Franklin Park Conservatory - Located on Broad street a few miles east of downtown, the Park Conservatory is a great stop on any afternoon. Botanical exhibits feature a mix of plant-life and modern art. Attend during the summer months if possible for the annual butterfly exhibit.
5) Visit Easton Town Center - This shopping destination pioneered the “Lifestyle Center” concept and is still one of the most prime examples of it’s type anywhere in the country. Located just a few miles east of downtown, Easton combines standard shopping mall stores with a pedestrian-friendly outdoor setting. A mix of dining options, entertainment venues, and outdoor performance art during the summer makes it one of a kind stop in Columbus.
6) Tour the Ohio State University Campus - Columbus is home to one of the largest universities in the nation, and the campus is full of interesting activities for non-students and visitors. The commercial strip along High Street is famous for it’s stores, shops, and food options. Special mention also goes out to the Wexner Center for the Arts, where you can attend an event or view an exhibit while on campus.
7) Visit the Columbus Zoo - The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is located approximately 20 miles north of downtown, but well worth the drive. Many of it’s exhibits have received national acclaim, and current expansion plans will increase the size of the zoo to make it one of the largest in North America.
8) Bar Hop in the Arena District - If you can visit Columbus during the winter hockey season you can take in a Blue Jackets game at Nationwide Arena, but the bars and restaurants in the Arena District are hopping all year long. All flavors of nightlife can be found through this area including sports bars, dance clubs, lounges, summer patios, local breweries, cocktails, DJs, live bands, national acts, local talents, and everything in between.
9) Visit the Columbus Museum of Art - The Art Museum is located right downtown and features a large collection of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American and European modern art. There are also rotating exhibits featured as well.
10) Go Out to Eat Constantly - Dining in Columbus gets it’s own special mention. Columbus may not be known for specific types of cuisine, but the sheer variety of options (most of which are very affordable) means that you should never been dining at home while visiting this city. The results of this poll showed that everyone’s got some pretty strong favorites. Some were already mentioned up above, and some others include M, Cap City, Spagio, Basi Italia, Northstar Cafe, Jack & Benny’s, Due Amici, and Latitude 41. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
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Related Tags: entertainment • things to do • top ten • visiting
May 11th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Here’s my own top 10 just to get the ball rolling:
1 Stroll through German Village
2 Shop & Lunch at North Market
3 Bar Hop through Arena District & Park Street
4 Stroll through Short North
5 Dinner Downtown (Due Amici, Lat 41, Tip Top, Brownstone, etc)
6 Columbus Zoo & Aquarium
7 Visit Franklin Park Conservatory
8 Breakfast in Clintonville (North Star, Nancy’s, Jack & Benny’s, etc)
9 Visit the Book Loft
10 Columbus Museum of Art
May 11th, 2007 at 11:01 am
My list would probably be the same as yours, except I would have to throw Easton on there somewhere (even though I really don’t want to).
May 11th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Franklin Park Conservatory
COSI
Art Museum
OSU Campus
North Market
Easton
Short North
Park of Roses
Zoo
Wexner Center
May 11th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Wow, 10 things that I enjoy is hard enough to think of, I will try though. Damn, just realized anytime of the year too, that makes my #1 choice of football game out.
1. M
2. Drive through Bexley and look at homes.
3. Drive around Campus and show off the University.
4. Bar hop arena district.
5. Stroll through short north.
6. Drive through upper arlington and look at homes.
7. Drive to new albany and look at homes.
I cannot really think of anything else, it just seems everytime someone visits we are driving around looking at homes.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:19 am
1.) Breakfast at North Star in SN
2.) Franklin Park Conservatory
3.) GV, the Book Loft and coffee at CoJoe
4.) Lunch at North Market
5.) Goodale Park
6.) SN Galleries (if I pick 1, the Mahan)
7.) Wexner Center
8.) Wine bar at Spagio
9.) Dinner at Basi
10.) Nightcap at Bristol
if there’s a day 2 - OSU and Easton come into the mix
day 3 - zoo and a clippers/crew game
May 11th, 2007 at 11:27 am
breakfast at jack and benny’s
May 11th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Obviously in reality this would depend a LOT on who they were, where they were from, and what kind of stuff they were into.
Anyway, here are my suggestions:
1. Catch A Show @ Shadowbox Cabaret*
2. Walk through OSU Campus
3. Lunch & Shopping @ the North Market
4. Shopping & possibly food at Easton
5. Visit Franklin Park Conservatory
6. Columbus Zoo & Aquarium
7. Franklin Park Conservatory
8. Dinner @ “M”
9. Shopping @ Polaris
10. Breakfast @ Nancy’s
11. A trip to COSI
* = this can be done basically any Thurs - > Saturday (and sometimes Sun), so it’s a more stable option then the Gallery Hop, since it’s “any weekend”, but if it needs to be DQ’d thanks to the non-weekday options, that’s why I’ve included 11 choices.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:29 am
1. German Village, walking tour.
2. Topiary Park (finally saw this myself first time recently!)
3. Zoo, definitely…one of best in world, right?
4. Short North for a stroll up High Street from cap to 5th or so
5. North Market shopping, Arena District walk around.
6. Either COSI or the Museum of Art, depending on what was the feature
7. Breakfast at Banana Bean
8. Lunch at Rosendale’s
9. Dinner at Basi Italia
10. ROAD SNACKS FROM WHITE CASTLE! (come on, we are famous for it!)
May 11th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
This was the topic Rebecca Ryan brought up in the cafe before releasing her report. Lots of these same places were brought up in the discussion.
My list:
1) Short North shopping/eatery
2) Easton shopping/eatery
3) Visit one of the many MetroParks
4) German Village Book Loft
5) Arena District Bar hop
6) Powell Craft store (if with my grandma)
7) Alum Creek (hit the trails)
8) Polaris shopping
9) Home tours of the area
10) Catch a game (Clippers or Blue Jackets) usually a game is going on all year long.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
^^ :lol:
the 8) came up instead of just an 8.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
If I have friends in from out of town, I usually wind up taking them:
1) Shopping in the Short North
2) Drinks at Betty’s or the Surly Girl
3) Shopping at Easton
4) Book Loft in German Village
5) Walking around looking at the houses in Victorian Village
6) Breakfast at Spinelli’s
7) Lunch or Jeni’s ice cream at the North Market
8) Driving tour up or down High St between the Brewery District and Worthington
9) Stauf’s in Grandview for coffee
10) Half Price Books on Lane
May 11th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
1. go pick up some skanks from major woody’s
2. take them to bernie’s and tell them this is the nicest bar in the city
3. throw some batteries at hookers
4. punch-a-size some campus bums faces
5. take them to the city center mall and tell them it’s our best mall
6. then over to westland and tell them it used to be our best mall
7. take them swimming at a holiday inn express
8. eat breakfast at white castles, lunch at white castles, and dinner at white castles… or waffle house… either way
9. go coffin hunting at hoover resevoir
10. take them house seeing in linden
May 11th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I’ve had some out-of-town visitors, and though I try to tailor the visits to their interests and to seasonal activities, this is a pretty good model of what a weekend visitor gets when they crash on my couch:
(Note: I live in the Short North, so it’s a little over-represented on the itinerary!)
Friday night
1. Dinner at Surly Girl
2. Drinks somewhere in the short north, or at Wall Street if they visitor is gay.
Saturday:
3. Morning walk around OSU Campus; stop into Bookstores for t-shirts if necessary.
4. Lunch at North Market
5. Dessert at Jeni’s and/or Imagination Chocolatier (if we don’t do Jeni’s at this point, then we stop in Grandview at some other point!)
6. Movie at the Drexel in Bexley
7. Dinner at a Cameron Mitchell place (Cap City is fun, especially to bring family) OR an Aladdin’s location if the visitor is vegetarian.
8. Walk around Goodale Park and the Short North (and I really do try to plan visitors to be here during Gallery Hops!)
Sunday:
9. Driving tour of Downtown (especially the capital building) and German Village.
10. Brunch at Bob Evans (I know it’s not amazing, but they don’t have many of them where I grew up, so it’s a novelty for most of my visitors)
Alternates (especially when visitors are here on subsequent visits): Walks in downtown Grandview, movies at Arena Grand, outlet malls in Jeffersonville, COSI, Book Loft, Pistaccio, Wexner Center, Haiku, Shoku … the list goes on. I think I need to schedule some visitors. 8) [/b]
May 11th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Hey! Welcome to the site! Thanks for posting! :)
May 11th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
realistic friday nite-sunday morning 10 event ideas… leaning a bit marcus-centric, personal history included for no extra cost.
1. clippers game
2. film at drexel gateway
3. drinks at larry’s
bed
4. breakfast at first watch
5. morning round of disc golf at griggs
6. lunch at the brown bag
7. after lunch stroll around shiller park
8. good times at the museum of art/franklin park
9. tour of campus via CABS
10. drinks and food at Surly Girl, dancing at Skully’s
bed
for my own version of the tour, sunday morning would involve a stop at the waffle house in marysville- but that’s not columbus, so i left it out. feel free to add it in, but i will not allow TeeJayes- no visitor should ever be made/allowed to eat there.
May 11th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Hey now! Everyone should experience a full-on Barnyard Buster at least once.
May 11th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Preach on shroud, I’m with ya on that one…I still pick up a Buster once every 2-3 months. It may not be pretty, but DAMMMMMM it’s good.
May 11th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
This list is provided I had a car to transport my guests all around the city.
1. Stroll through German Village
2. Visit The Book Loft while there
3. Stroll through The Short North
4. Visit the Franklin Park Conservatory
5. Lunch/Trek @ Easton
6. Stroll through Olde Worthington
7. Park of Roses
8. Stroll Through Uptown Westerville (Dinner @ Old Bag perhaps)
My mind is blank right now.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Bodega
Schiller
German Village
Goodale
the shoe
walk from bicentenial to north bank park
arena district
short north
jeni’s
north market
runners up:
barcelona
surly girl
book loft
library
May 14th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Alrighty! I tallied everything up and posted the Top 10 in the first post! It’s pretty much what I expected the list to look like! 8)
May 15th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Agree with with just about all, though not so sure about the conservatory and wouldn’t do Easton. Especially if the visitor was from Europe, I’d be too embarassed to show them what we traded a real city for.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Obviously everyone’s going to have a different experience, but most of the European visitors I’ve known would go into a near-coronary seeing an American retail complex like Easton - a shopping frenzy even. Take them to a place like the outlet malls down in Jeffersonville and you’d better have an ambulance standing by.
May 15th, 2007 at 9:26 am
My aunt and cousin come over from England about every other year and one of the first things they want to do is go to Easton because everything is so cheap to them and they view it as a very nice shopping place. FYI
May 15th, 2007 at 10:01 am
My friend from Germany loves Easton. Most everyone else I’ve brought there from out of the country (or from this country) have really enjoyed it.
It’s hardly my favorite place to spend a normal afternoon, but it’s a pretty cool place to take people from out of town, IMO.
May 15th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Don’t you mean you’d be too embarassed to show them what we traded a cornfield for?
I agree with pretty much everything said about this so far. Most visitors I host from out of town love going to Easton. This type of shopping experience was pioneered here in Columbus and is still one of the best “Lifestyle” centers in the country. Sure, it’s a fake little city, but it’s more unique than any other mall around here.
And sure, shopping in a downtown environment would be nicer, but it’s not really an option at the moment. And strolling through the Short North shops did rank #1 on the list while Easton ranked #5. So it’s seems like the people who voted on this list have their priorities in order.
8)