Hotels         Airlines       Rental Cars

{State bird, Cardinal}{State Flower, Scarlet Carnation}
{State Tree, Buckeye}

Economy: Transportation Equipment, Machinery, Farming.

Ohio is famous for being a large Industrial State. Ohio Home of the: Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Browns. 
 

Fishing on famous Lake Erie, Kelley's Island is a good place to relax and drop your fishing pole in the water.
on the Island you can rent a golf cart for transportation.
There is a ferry that will take you to the island, and there are bed and breakfast rooms to stay in.

Thistledown race track, located in North field, a place to see  world famous horses run.

Flats in Cleveland offers a large selection of famous restaurants, Bars, Pubs and grills Located on the
Cuyahoga River.

Kings Island a fun place for excitement with an amusement park, equipped with all sorts of rides like roller coasters.

Sea World is a very large park housing lots of aquariums and having many shows each day such as the killer whale shows.  For a surprise click the thumbnail of Sea World located to your left.

See the Foot Ball Hall of Fame in Canton, OH.

Like excitement how about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in
the heart of downtown Cleveland.

Take a ferry boat ride to Relax at Kelley's Island,
offering many attractions and fun,
located in world famous Lake Erie.

Many old style bed & breakfasts, nice places to
stay and maybe do some fishing.

Famous Geneva on the Lake, a Resort village offering:
dinning,  dancing, arcades, fishing and many fun
things to do. Located on the Lake Erie shore line
in Geneva, OH.

Did you know that the world famous Patterson Air Force Base is right here,  located in Dayton, OH.

Of course for a wild fun time take the kids to  Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio.
offering over 100 rides and attractions including: 14 of some of the worlds best, thrilling roller coasters, with the 200 foot tall magnum, reaching speeds of over 65 mph.

OHIO , the farthest east of the Great Lakes states, lies to the south of shallow Lake Erie. This is one of the nation's most industrialized regions, but the industry is largely concentrated in the east, near the Ohio River. To the south the landscape becomes less populated and more forested. Ohio also has the world's largest Amish population. They farm in the northeast and west into mid-Indiana, and are much less of a tourist attraction than the highly publicized Pennsylvania Dutch.

Enigmatic traces of Ohio's earliest inhabitants can be seen at the Great Serpent Mound , a grassy state park sixty miles east of Cincinnati, where a cleared hilltop high above a river was reshaped to represent a giant snake swallowing an egg, possibly by the Adena Indians around 800 BC. When the French claimed the area in 1699, it was inhabited by the Iroquois , in whose language Ohio means "something great." In the eighteenth century, its prime position between Lake Erie and the Ohio River made it the subject of fierce contention between the French and British. Once the British had acquired control of most of the French land east of the Mississippi, settlers from New England began to establish communities along both the Ohio River and the Iroquois War Trail paths on the shores of the lake.

During the Civil War, Ohio was at the forefront of the struggle, producing two great Union generals, Ulysses Grant and William Sherman, and sending more than twice its quota of volunteers to fight for the North. Its progress thereafter has followed the classic "Rust Belt" pattern: rapid industrialization, aided by its natural resources and crucial location, which during the 1970s foundered alarmingly and has only recently shown any signs of resurgence.

Although the state is dominated by its triumvirate of "C"s ( Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati ), its most visited destinations are the Lake Erie Islands , which have benefited from the recent cleanup of the polluted lake and now attract thousands of partying mainlanders. Cincinnati and Cleveland, the latter hit especially hard by the recession, have both undergone major face-lifts and are surprisingly attractive, as is the comparatively unassuming state capital of Columbus.

The LAKE ERIE ISLANDS - Kelleys Island and the three Bass Islands further north - were early stepping stones for the Iroquois on the route to what is now Ontario. French attempts to claim the islands in the 1640s met with considerable hostility, and they were left more or less in peace until 1813, when in the Battle of Lake Erie , fought off South Bass Island, the Americans established their control over the Great Lakes by destroying the entire English fleet (for the first time in history).
Click on Thumbnail to Enlarge

Terminal Tower	Cleveland
Rock & Roll	Lake Erie
Country Drive	Sea World

The islands first tasted prosperity in the 1860s, when a boom in wine production meant that nearly every available acre was planted with grapes. Tourism arrived almost simultaneously, as steamboats brought wealthy visitors to spend their summers in the grand hotels. However, the economy was hit hard by Prohibition and the emergence of the California wineries, as well as by the advent of car travel. In the 1970s, Lake Erie's appalling pollution was the final straw for many inhabitants, who undertook a huge cleanup, both literally, of the lake, and figuratively, of the islands' image. Their plan has worked; today the islands are heavily visited, especially in summer, with fishing, swimming and partying the main attractions. Those mainland towns, like Sandusky , that act as jump-off points for the islands are destinations in themselves.

Today, the great industrial port of CLEVELAND - for so long the butt of jokes after the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire in the early 1970s - is no longer the "Mistake on the Lake." Although the path back from acute recession (another 1970s legacy) is by no means complete on a citywide basis, the downtown area is now a hub of energy. Cleveland boasts a sensitive and fond restoration of the Lake Erie/Cuyahoga River waterfront, a superb constellation of museums, glittering city center malls and new downtown super-stadiums. Add to that the recent arrival of several major corporate headquarters and classy hotels - and, of course, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - and there's an unmistakeable buzz about the place.

Founded in 1796, Cleveland profited greatly, thirty years later, from the opening of the Ohio Canal between the Ohio River and Lake Erie. During the city's heyday, which began with the Civil War and lasted until the 1920s, its vast iron and coal supplies made it one of the most important steel and shipbuilding centers in the world. John D. Rockefeller made his billions here, as did the many others whose now-decrepit old mansions line "Millionaires' Row." This has become a no-go area, along with several other bleak and faceless danger spots. Despite the investment of billions of dollars, the scars of deprivation are still visible if you wander too far off the tourist path.

South and west of the city are several spots of interest, including the quaint lakeshore community of Vermilion , the tiny liberal college sanctuary of Oberlin , and the charming hamlet of Peninsula .

The large coal-shipping port of SANDUSKY , fifty miles west of Cleveland on US-2, is probably the most visited of the lakeshore towns, thanks to Cedar Point Amusement Park , five miles southeast of town . The largest ride park in the nation - and widely considered the best in the world - Cedar Point boasts no less than thirteen roller coasters. The neighboring Soak City water park provides a good way to cool off, with eighteen acres of water slides and a wave pool . Otherwise, Sandusky is a nice enough town in a pleasant farmland setting, but there's not much to it apart from its pretty downtown square and the fast-food spots lining US-2.