Ohio at Its Least Touristy

The least touristy version of Ohio is the real one: two-lane roads through corn, gas station pizza, county fairs, and towns that peaked once and settled in comfortably. Skip the attractions and drive Route 40 or Route 62 instead, and you'll see the state the way people who live there see it.

Nobody flies to Ohio for a vacation, which is exactly why the good parts stayed good. There's no velvet rope in front of anything. You just have to know where to slow down.

Get off the interstates first

I-70 and I-71 exist to move you through Ohio as fast as possible, and they succeed. The state they show you is rest stops and distribution warehouses. The fix is simple: take the old roads. Route 40, the National Road, runs the width of the state through towns that were built when it was the main road and never fully adjusted to not being it. Route 62 cuts diagonally through farm country and Amish country. Route 52 follows the Ohio River along the bottom of the state, which is hillier and prettier than anyone outside Ohio expects.

Township roads are the deepest layer. They're numbered, mostly straight, sometimes gravel, and they run between bean fields to nowhere in particular. Driving them at dusk in August, windows down, is a legitimate Ohio activity. People do it on purpose.

Eat where there's no line of out-of-towners

Ohio's food is regional to the point of stubbornness. Each pocket of the state has a thing, and the thing rarely travels more than a county away.

• Barberton chicken. Serbian-style fried chicken with hot sauce over rice, served in a handful of restaurants in one small city near Akron. Locals argue about which one. Pick any and you'll do fine.
• Steubenville-style pizza. Square-cut, cold cheese and toppings added after the bake. It sounds wrong. It is not wrong.
• Trail bologna. Smoked beef bologna from Holmes County, eaten with baby swiss on a cracker. Standard offering at any gathering in Amish country.
• Gas station pizza. A genuine rural Ohio institution. If the gas station has a pizza counter and a line of work trucks outside at noon, stop.
• The Maid-Rite in Greenville. Loose-meat sandwiches served from a tiny building with a wall covered in decades of chewing gum. You'll know it when you see it.
• Chili parlors. Cincinnati chili is the famous one, but the small neighborhood parlors around the region beat anything with a franchise sign.

None of these places will explain themselves to you. Order what the person ahead of you ordered.

Small towns that reward a stop

Zanesville has the Y-Bridge, a bridge shaped like a Y where you can turn in the middle. It's odd and useful and the town is quietly proud of it. Portsmouth, down on the river, has floodwall murals running along its length — the town painted its history on the concrete that protects it, and you can walk the whole thing for free.

Marietta sits where the Muskingum meets the Ohio, all brick streets and river fog. Mount Vernon, Lancaster, Wooster, Tiffin — these are courthouse-square towns with a diner, a hardware store, and a movie theater somebody refuses to let die. The pattern repeats across the state and it never gets old. The courthouse is always the tallest building and the coffee is always weak and that's fine.

Festivals nobody flies in for

Ohio's festival calendar is where the state stops pretending to be modest and celebrates extremely specific things.

• The Circleville Pumpkin Show — an entire town given over to pumpkins each fall, including pumpkin-flavored versions of foods that arguably should be left alone.
• The Millersport Sweet Corn Festival — sweet corn, eaten standing up, butter running down your wrist, near Buckeye Lake.
• The Pawpaw Festival near Athens — a celebration of a native fruit most Americans have never tasted, held in the hills of southeast Ohio.
• Every county fair. Demolition derby, 4-H hogs, ribbon fries, a grandstand concert by a country act you half-remember. The county fair is Ohio's true summer holiday.

None of these are staged for visitors. They'd happen at the same size if nobody from outside the county showed up, which is roughly what happens.

Lake Erie in the off-season

The islands and Cedar Point get the summer crowds. Go in late October instead. Geneva-on-the-Lake goes quiet, the wineries along the Grand River keep pouring, and the lake turns gray and serious. Walk a beach at Headlands or Fairport Harbor in a real coat and you'll have it nearly to yourself. Lake Erie in November looks like the North Atlantic and behaves like it too. Locals consider this a feature.

Winter follows hard. The snowbelt east of Cleveland gets buried, and the response is high school basketball, euchre at the kitchen table, and complaining about the roads with genuine affection. If you want to understand Ohio, understand that people stay through February on purpose.

The rituals you'll run into

Some things you'll encounter whether you plan to or not. Cornhole in every driveway and church parking lot, played with more seriousness than the equipment suggests. Friday night football under lights you can see from three fields away. Sweet corn sold on the honor system from a card table at the end of a farm lane.

And the call-and-response. Someone yells "O-H" across a parking lot, an airport, a wedding — and someone else, a stranger, answers "I-O." It works anywhere in the world. It is not optional. If you've ever answered without thinking, the O-H Tee was made for you, and the rest of our Ohio collection covers the state at the same volume — proud, but not shouting. The Ohio State Pride Tee is the plainer statement, for people who'd rather just wear the answer.

Ohio's least touristy self is also its best self. Nobody performing, nothing polished, everything sincere. Take the old road, eat the square pizza, answer the call. You'll get it.

Common questions

What's the best time of year to see Ohio like a local?

Late summer through October. Sweet corn season rolls into county fair season, then football, then the Pumpkin Show. The weather is at its best and every small town has something going on.

Is rural Ohio worth visiting if I only know Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati?

Yes — the cities are only part of the picture. The courthouse towns, river valleys, and farm roads are where most of the state's character lives. Route 40, Route 62, and Route 52 are the easiest ways in.

What food should I try that I can't get outside Ohio?

Barberton chicken, Steubenville-style pizza, and trail bologna with baby swiss are the hardest to find anywhere else. Cincinnati chili travels a little, but the neighborhood parlors are the real version.