Field NotesOhio
Upper Falls in the Old Man's Cave gorge, Hocking Hills, with visitors on the rocks

An independent field guide · 365 places

The field guide to outdoor Ohio

Parks and forests, ancient mounds, caves, waterfalls and back roads, with the story behind each place and where to eat and fuel up nearby.
Popular:
  • 117parks & forests
  • 64ancient mounds
  • 34waterfalls
  • 40historic sites
  • 33road trips

Old Man's Cave, Hocking Hills · Photo: Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0

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State parks & forests117 places, with cabins, campsites and trails117 places Waterfalls34 falls, with trail notes34 falls Mounds & earthworks64 ancient sites, from Serpent Mound to Newark64 ancient sites Caves & caverns12 show caverns, recess caves and rock shelters12 caves Lake Erie beaches20 public beaches, Conneaut to Toledo20 beaches Historic sites40 places, from the frontier to the Civil War40 places Road trips33 drives, from the Lincoln Highway to the Morgan Heritage Trail33 drives Oddities19 giants, ghosts and folk-art stops19 roadside stops The Buckeye TrailA 1,444-mile loop, all 26 sections1,444 miles

New to the guide?

Six places to start

One from every corner of the state, each with its full story inside.

01Old Man's CaveHocking Hills · SoutheastA gorge of waterfalls and recess caves where a hermit is said to have lived, with the park's visitor center. 02Great Serpent MoundAdams County · SouthwestA gigantic earthen snake on a hilltop over Ohio Brush Creek, built by a people whose name is still argued over. 03Brandywine FallsCuyahoga Valley · NortheastThe tallest waterfall in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, reached by an easy boardwalk with an accessible upper overlook. 04Marblehead LighthouseMarblehead · Lake ErieThe oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes, lit since 1821, on nine acres of limestone shoreline. 05Zoar VillageTuscarawas County · EasternA well-preserved communal village founded by German separatists in 1817, on the Ohio & Erie Canal. 06Longaberger Basket BuildingNewark · CentralA seven-story office building shaped like a picnic basket, with handles that are heated in winter.

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Open the mapAll 365 places on one map. Filter by cabins, campsites, hunting, beaches and more.Explore the map → Browse by countyPick any of Ohio's 88 counties and see its parks, mounds, waterfalls and historic sites.Find your county → Build a tripSave places as you browse, then line them up into a weekend. Kept in your browser, nothing to sign up for.Start a trip →

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One map for every park, mound, historic site, beach, cave, waterfall and oddity in the app.

Lake ErieWest Virginia36 places368 places813 places135 places523 places2321 places2124 places2416 places1613 places134 places418 places182 places217 places1710 places1014 places142 places27 places76 places613 places133 places34 places414 places143 places3Harrison Lake State Park2 places22 places22 places26 places64 places4

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Parks, forests & wildlife areas

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117 parks in 7 regions

Ohio History Center

Columbus · Franklin County · Central Ohio
The state museum's Hopewell gallery
Ohio History ConnectionNational Register of Historic PlacesMuseum
Directions →Official source →

The state museum's Hopewell gallery shows how the builders of Ohio's eight World Heritage earthworks aligned them to the sun and moon, with 2,000-year-old objects from the sites.

Exhibit
Indigenous Wonders of Our World: The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, opened in 2022
About
How the builders of Ohio's eight UNESCO World Heritage earthworks aligned them to the sun and moon, with objects from the sites
Collections
Much of what has been excavated from Ohio's mounds since the 1800s
Archaeology
The Ohio History Connection has had a Curator of Archaeology since 1894
Building
A 1970 Brutalist landmark, listed on the National Register with Ohio Village in 2023

The story

The Ohio History Center is the state history museum, run by the Ohio History Connection in a 1970 concrete building beside I-71 north of downtown Columbus. The organization has employed a Curator of Archaeology since 1894, beginning with Warren K. Moorehead, and its collections hold much of what has been dug from Ohio's mounds and earthworks over more than a century.

Its main gallery on the ancient past, Indigenous Wonders of Our World: The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, opened in 2022. It explains the geometry and astronomy behind the eight earthworks named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023, including Newark, Fort Ancient and the Chillicothe sites, and shows objects excavated from them. It is the best place in Ohio to see what came out of the mounds the rest of this section describes.

Related sites

Visiting information you can trust

Content last reviewed
November 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
Primary official source
Official page
Location confidence
Verified property location
Located from the site's street address
Check current conditions
Official conditions or closures
Reservations or tickets
Tickets or admission info

Prices, hours, closures, campsite availability and trail conditions shown elsewhere on this page are not live — always confirm with the official source before you go.

Where the Mounds' Treasures Went

Copper, mica, pipes carved into animals, obsidian from the Rockies: much of what was taken from Ohio's mounds since the 1800s ended up in one collection in Columbus.

Some of it is on view here, beside the story of how the earthworks were built to catch the sun and moon.

Behind the legend

The curator's office, the collections and the 2022 exhibit are described by the Ohio History Connection. Not every object is on display, and the museum's broader prehistory displays of earlier decades have been replaced by the Hopewell gallery.

If you go

Visit before or after a trip to the earthworks themselves; the gallery makes the sites easier to read. It is closed Monday and Tuesday.

Visiting

Status
Open Wednesday to Sunday
Managed by
Ohio History Connection
Hours
Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission
Adults $16; age 60+ and college students $14; ages 4 to 12 $10; age 3 and under and Ohio History Connection members free. Prices include a 5% arts fee.
Phone
614-297-2300
Address
800 E. 17th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43211
Official information →Directions

Parks nearby

Alum Creek State Park
About 16 miles · A big lake park with the largest inland beach in Ohio.
Open
Buckeye Lake State Park
About 25 miles · A historic canal reservoir turned recreation lake.
Open

Details last checked 2026-11-05. Confirm hours and prices before you go.

Know a place that belongs here, or spotted something out of date? Email hello@fieldnotesohio.com.