Hocking Hills State Park

A couple weeks ago, we decided to take a weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio for my son’s 11th birthday. Our whole trip started because we just HAD to visit the Columbus Zoo after watching Secrets of the Zoo on Disney+. So, since I didn’t just want to travel 5 ½ hours to go to a zoo, I looked for other things we could do while we were there. Recently, my family has gotten really into hiking, so I looked for somewhere we could go. That’s when I found Hocking Hills. I had heard of this state park, but never visited. After reading some reviews, I was pumped. It’s about an hour away from Columbus, but I figured we’d spend a couple hours there and make a day of it.

We drove out to Hocking Hills State Park and let me tell you, that last bit of the drive there is no joke. I’m talking a 2-lane road with twists, turns, and hills. Personally, I had a blast driving, but my husband was nervous so...just be aware. It’s not right off the highway.

But Oh. My. Gosh! When we got to the parking lot (at Old Man’s Cave Visitor Center), there were cars everywhere! People were parked along the road, all over the place, in the grass. It was insane. I was not excited. I did not drive an hour to hike with 3,000 other people. But since we had driven so far, I was determined to make the best of it and we luckily found a spot right up by the Visitor’s Center. Someone was leaving, just as we pulled around.

Due to Covid, we decided to wear our masks. However, I will tell you that almost no one else did. Luckily, once we got on the trail, people were mostly spread out. The further and further we got into the trail, the fewer people there actually were.

There are so many beautiful sights along this trail. And a couple different trail options to take.

First, note that (at least at the current moment) these trails are meant to be one way.

We started out taking the Upper Falls Loop Trail where we saw the Upper Falls.

Then, we quickly diverted to the Grandma Gatewood (Buckeye) Trail, which took us to the bottom of the Falls and on to Devil’s Bathtub.

We then continued on and chose to keep going toward the Lower Falls instead of turning toward Old Man’s Cave.

I honestly had the most fun at the Lower Falls. We spent so much time here. My son and I definitely broke the rules and went off trail. But it was just so pretty. We couldn’t resist. We walked behind the falls. And we climbed a rock. Which gave us some amazing pictures.

Then we took the Lower Access Trail (which had SO many stairs) up to the Gorge Exit Trail.

At this point, we’re like, how do we get to Old Man’s Cave? I don’t know if we just couldn’t see where to go or what, but we ended up going the wrong way on the trail to backtrack to Old Man’s Cave once we saw the Visitor’s Center. This was such a fun place to explore.

 

Seriously, this whole place was very interesting and we had a ton of fun exploring it! Ideally, there would have been fewer people there, but we did somehow end up here on the first beautiful day of the entire year with clear skies in the low 70s. Plus, it was a Saturday.

There were way more trails to explore, but we were starting to get tired, so we headed back to the car.

We did end up driving over to Cedar Falls. And it was pretty. And we thought it was worth the visit. But be aware that the entire trail to this is stairs. Seriously, straight down. Look at the falls. Straight back up. It was insane. But we loved it!

Overall, I walked 14,816 steps that day. We were exhausted, but we enjoyed every second of it.

5 Tips for Visiting the Columbus Zoo

Last weekend, we visited Columbus, Ohio for a short weekend getaway to celebrate my son’s 11th birthday. We had so much fun! The first thing we did on Friday was to visit the Columbus Zoo. 

 While we were there, they were open 10am to 5pm. However, when I went to book our tickets, all of the 10am ticket times were taken so we weren’t able to get in until 10:30am. Obviously, you should try to get in as soon as possible. However, I had forgotten that spring break was occurring for a lot of schools.

So Tip #1: Plan ahead! Get your tickets as soon as you can.

Admission is $16.99 for everyone 10 and up. Plus, there is a $10 parking fee (which we bought in advance with our tickets).

We arrived around 10:15am to look for a parking space and get ourselves ready. We needed to make sure everyone had a mask and a water bottle. My husband grabbed our backpack. And then we were ready to line up and get into the zoo.

Tip #2: Pack a backpack.

What’s in our backpack?
We brought snacks, hand sanitizer, extra masks (in case the ones we were wearing got wet), an umbrella (the forecast called for rain), Wet Ones, lip balm (because for some reason, ever since we started wearing masks, my lips have been chapped), sunscreen, reusable straws, hats (just in case the sun decided to show itself), Tylenol, and a charging bank (just in case all those pictures you take kill the battery on your phone).

We then walked our way around the zoo. It wasn’t too busy while we were there, but it definitely wasn’t empty either. We did end up seeing every animal that was on exhibit, but we also didn’t care if we didn’t make it everywhere. We made a list of our top animals to see, and we made sure to visit all of those.

Tip #3: Decide what’s important to you and make sure you see those things.

For example, seeing the polar bears in the underwater viewing area was high on our list of things to see. However, when we got there, they were lazing around, and definitely had no plans to get in the water. So, we saw a couple of the animals in that same area and came back. They still weren’t in the water, so we waited. We ended up waiting for about half an hour. But eventually, they got in! Actually, my husband was up top while my son and I waited down below and he texted me that they were getting ready to throw some enrichment items in the water (which he learned from an employee that probably felt bad for us because they had seen us waiting for so long haha). And we were not disappointed!

There were a couple things that were closed while we were there. Like the Africa section. The only animals out were the lions. I think it was just a little too chilly for the rest of the animals.

Overall, we really enjoyed the Columbus Zoo. We’ve visited a lot of zoos and this one really impressed us. I would highly recommend a visit here if you’re a zoo lover (like us).

This zoo is not small, though. Which brings us to…

Tip #4: Wear comfortable shoes!

I mean, I recommend this no matter what zoo you’re going to, but especially a large zoo like the Columbus Zoo. I just looked, and I clocked 18,543 steps the day we visited. And we seriously didn’t do anything else. My feet were tired the next day!

One of our favorite parts of this zoo is the Manatee tank, which is why we saved it for last (or so we thought). It’s so sweet to see the surrogate mama manatee with her transplant babies. The babies are rescues that will eventually be returned to the wild. Plus, there’s a sea turtle in there, which is my son’s absolute favorite animal of all time.

 

Tip #5: Be flexible.

This is pretty much my life model. While we at the manatee tank, the woman talking was saying that you could touch and feed the stingrays over in another part of the zoo. And while I knew we could do that, I hadn’t planned to just because we’ve done that quite a few times before. But that didn’t stop my son from begging to go that way. So even though we thought we were done after the manatees, we ended up making our way over to the stingrays before exiting.

So, I hope that this was helpful and has fully convinced you to visit this zoo! We had a blast. And my son has told us that we definitely need to return in the summer.