Columbus is the largest city in Ohio, which surprises almost everybody: it passed Cleveland decades ago and it is now comfortably bigger than Cleveland and Cincinnati, with about 915,000 people in the city and over two million in the metropolitan area. It is the state capital, it holds one of the largest university campuses in the United States, and it is a genuinely good long weekend. It is also not a resort, and this post says so plainly rather than selling it as one.
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What Is Here
GERMAN VILLAGE IS THE BEST THING IN THE CITY AND IT NEARLY DID NOT SURVIVE. The first image is one of its streets: brick houses, brick pavements, brick roadways, built from the 1840s by German immigrants, left to decay through the mid twentieth century with a freeway driven through the northern end, and saved from clearance by a residents' society formed in 1960. It is now about 230 acres of restored nineteenth century housing, Schiller Park at its centre, and the Book Loft, a bookshop of 32 separate rooms in a pre-Civil War building, which is worth an hour on its own.
THE SHORT NORTH IS THE GALLERY AND RESTAURANT DISTRICT, a stretch of High Street between downtown and the university with metal arches over the road, independent shops and a gallery hop on the first Saturday of each month. It is the part of Columbus that feels least like anywhere else in Ohio.
THE NORTH MARKET HAS BEEN RUNNING SINCE 1876. The third image is it at night. It is a working public market rather than a food hall built to look like one, about three dozen independent vendors, and it is where to eat lunch downtown. The second image is the LeVeque Tower, a 1927 art deco skyscraper that was briefly the tallest building between New York and Chicago and is still the thing that makes the skyline recognisable.
OHIO STATE IS NOT A SIGHT, IT IS A FORCE. Around 60,000 students, a campus you can walk through, and OHIO STADIUM, which holds more than 100,000 people. On a home football Saturday in autumn the hotel rates double or triple, downtown and campus traffic becomes immovable, and the character of the whole city changes for a day. Check the schedule before you book: you either want to be here for that, which is a genuine spectacle, or you very much do not.
AND TWO QUIETER THINGS WORTH THE TRIP. The Franklin Park Conservatory holds a permanent collection of Chihuly glass among the plant houses, and the Scioto Mile is the riverfront the city rebuilt after removing a dam in 2013, which turned a stagnant pool back into a river with parkland either side. Both are a short ride from downtown.
When to Go
Late April to early June is the best weather of the year, warm without the humidity, with everything green and the patios open.
September and October are the other good window, with real autumn colour and comfortable walking temperatures. They are also football season, so check the fixture list against your dates.
July and August are hot and humid, often in the low thirties with the air thick, and afternoon thunderstorms are common.
December to February is properly cold, regularly below freezing, grey more often than bright, with snow and freezing rain both normal. The city functions perfectly well in it and the museums and the market are indoor propositions.
Getting There
THERE IS NO PASSENGER TRAIN. NONE. Columbus is one of the largest cities in the United States with no Amtrak service of any kind and no passenger station, a legacy of the 1970s. If you are building a rail trip through the Midwest, Columbus cannot be on it; a proposed Cleveland to Cincinnati route has been discussed for years and is not running.
John Glenn Columbus International is about fifteen minutes east of downtown and well served domestically. By road, Cleveland and Cincinnati are each roughly two hours, Indianapolis under three, Pittsburgh three, and Chicago about five and a half.
Downtown, German Village, the Short North and the campus are all walkable individually and spread out from each other, so expect to use the COTA bus, a bike or a ride app between them. A car is useful here in a way it is not in Chicago or Philadelphia, and parking is cheap and plentiful by American city standards.
The Columbus Packing List
Four genuine seasons, humid summers, cold snowy winters and a lot of walking on brick.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the right foundation here for eight months of the year, because an Ohio day moves through a wide range: a cold morning, a heated museum, a mild afternoon, a cold evening on a patio with a heater. Wool manages that without the clamminess a synthetic gives you on the warm end. From November to March add a heavyweight merino base layer, which in a Columbus January is doing real work rather than being a precaution.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece as the three-season mid layer, and from late autumn a Columbia Powder Lite insulated jacket over it, because the useful winter test here is standing still outdoors rather than walking.
Walking shoes with grip for the brick, which is handsome, uneven and slick when wet, and for the ice that German Village's pavements hold longer than asphalt does.
Insulated winter gloves and a merino beanie from November, for a wind that comes across flat country with nothing to slow it.
Not linked and worth packing: SOMETHING LIGHTER THAN YOU THINK FOR SUMMER EVENINGS INDOORS, because American air conditioning is aggressive; A FOLDING UMBRELLA, which earns its space in every season here; AND A LAYER YOU CAN CARRY in spring and autumn, when the morning and the afternoon can differ by fifteen degrees.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Columbus
Emergency numbers: 911 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile. Calls are answered locally and dispatchers will stay on the line. For non-urgent police matters many cities also run a 311 information line.
THE WEATHER IS THE HAZARD HERE AND ONE PIECE OF VOCABULARY DECIDES WHETHER YOU ARE SAFE. Ohio sits on the eastern edge of the country's severe weather belt and gets tornadoes, most often between April and July. The words are not interchangeable: A WATCH MEANS CONDITIONS ARE FAVOURABLE AND YOU SHOULD STAY AWARE, A WARNING MEANS ONE HAS BEEN SIGHTED OR DETECTED ON RADAR AND YOU SHOULD TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY, in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor away from windows. Warnings arrive on a phone automatically through the national wireless alert system and through outdoor sirens, and the National Weather Service office that covers central Ohio is the authority that issues them. A visitor in a hotel should know where the stairwell is, which is the usual designated shelter. THE SAME STORMS BRING FLASH FLOODING, and the standing instruction on an American road is never to drive into water of unknown depth. WINTER BRINGS ICE RATHER THAN DRAMA: freezing rain is more dangerous here than snow, because it glazes brick pavements and steps, and falls are the commonest visitor injury in any American midwestern winter. SUMMER HEAT AND HUMIDITY combine into a figure the weather service publishes as a heat index, worth reading rather than the plain temperature. ON CRIME, Columbus is an ordinary large American city: the areas visitors use, which are downtown, the Short North, German Village and the campus, are busy and well lit, and the normal advice applies of using a ride app late at night rather than walking unfamiliar streets between districts. The campus area on a weekend night is a student drinking environment, with the ordinary consequences that implies.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States, but it does carry a national warning: it says terrorists are very likely to try and carry out attacks in the US, and that attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by tourists and foreign nationals. Its guidance concentrates on the practical differences a British visitor meets: entry requirements and ESTA, the cost of healthcare without insurance, extreme weather including hurricanes on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts between June and November, and wildfires, which the FCDO describes as a danger in many dry areas, particularly in canyons, hills and forests.US State Department travel advisory: there is none, and this is not an omission. The State Department issues travel advisories for other countries, not for the United States itself, so no US advisory for this destination exists to link. In its place, the Government of Canada advice for the United States gives an equivalent third-country assessment.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits. The FCDO names no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States. The same advice also covers Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Main hospital: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital both have full emergency departments, and Wexner is the region's academic medical centre. Dial 911 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including one with no service plan. This is the single biggest practical difference for a visitor: there is no public health system, an emergency room visit without insurance can run into thousands of dollars, and an ambulance is billed separately and is not free. Comprehensive travel insurance with a high medical limit is not optional in the United States, and you should carry your policy number and the insurer's 24 hour number somewhere you can reach them. Urgent care clinics handle anything short of an emergency far more cheaply and quickly than an emergency room, and are the right choice for a sprain, an infection or stitches.
Official health authority: the CDC travellers' health pages, the US federal health authority for visitors, covers the national health travel information for visitors
Embassy contact: the United States is the host country, so there is no US embassy to contact. Your own country's embassy is in Washington DC, with consulates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and Boston. Find yours before you travel and save the number.
Official tourism authority: Brand USA, the national tourism marketing body, covers Ohio and the Midwest, and the city visitor office publishes the Ohio State football schedule and the first-Saturday gallery hop dates, the two things most likely to decide what a hotel room costs
Takeaways
No passenger rail at all. Fly or drive, and plan around that.
Check the Ohio State football schedule before booking anything.
German Village and the Short North are the reasons to come.
A tornado WATCH means stay aware. A WARNING means shelter now.
Solo women safety assessment: Columbus is a straightforward and inexpensive American city to travel alone in. Downtown, German Village, the Short North and the university area are busy, walkable and well lit, eating alone at the North Market or on a Short North patio is completely ordinary, and the city is friendly in the plain midwestern way that makes solo travel easy rather than remarkable. It is a large American city, so the usual judgement applies: use a ride app rather than walking between districts late at night, since the gaps between the good areas are long blocks of nothing much, and treat the campus bar strip on a weekend night as the student drinking environment it is. THE REAL RISKS ARE WEATHER, AND THEY ARE SEASONAL AND SPECIFIC. Tornadoes are a genuine spring and summer hazard here, and the vocabulary matters: a watch means be aware, a warning means take shelter in an interior room on the lowest floor immediately, and both arrive automatically on a phone. The same storms produce flash flooding, where the rule is never to drive into standing water. In winter, freezing rain rather than snow is what hurts people, by glazing brick pavements and steps, so shoes with real grip are a safety item. In July and August the heat index rather than the temperature is the number to read. 911 REACHES POLICE, AMBULANCE AND FIRE from any phone, and two hospitals with full emergency departments sit within the city.
Reading On
Columbus sits at the centre of a well covered region. The Cincinnati packing list covers the Ohio River city two hours south west and the Cleveland packing list the Lake Erie one two hours north, so the three make an obvious Ohio triangle. Further out, the Indianapolis packing list covers the Indiana capital, the Pittsburgh packing list the three-rivers city east, the Louisville packing list the Kentucky city on the same river, and the Milwaukee packing list another midwestern city with a German brewing inheritance of its own. For the country, the USA travel guide for women carries the states, the transport and the seasons in full. For why wool suits a cold morning and a heated museum in the same day, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
