Waterfalls, Caves, and Trails in Hocking Hills, Ohio

For those of us who live in the Midwest, we often get to see cliffs and waterfalls when we venture out west. We typically don’t expect to see them right in our own backyard. However, the surprising gem of a region known as Hocking Hills, Ohio offers spectacular cliffs, huge caves, beautiful waterfalls, and a great network of hiking trails to connect everything together.

Fortunately, my family and I got to experience all of these natural wonders on our most recent spring break trip to Hocking Hills, Ohio.

Although some vacations require a ton of planning, Hocking Hills has so many great waterfalls and caves that we were able to head down there with relatively little planning. We decided to go about 3 weeks before the trip, packed the day before, and were still planning out stuff to do on the way to Hocking Hills.

Hocking Hills is awesome!

Despite our lack of planning, our trip to Hocking Hills was quite awesome! Since we live in southeast Michigan, we are used to incredible lakes and rivers, but we are not used to cool rock formations, cliffs, caves, waterfalls, and mountains. Michigan, and the Midwest in general, is typically pretty flat.

However, Hocking Hills is unique for the Midwest region because it has high cliffs, waterfalls, and gorges that are formed out of the sandstone in the area.

The first night that we were there, we explored Cantwell Cliffs and the Rock House. Although the two areas are only separated by 10-15 miles, they are completely unique. Cantwell Cliffs has many narrow passages where you have to squeeze through rocks, waterfalls, a great hiking trail along the rim of a cliff, as well as three soaring “caves.” Rock House, on the other hand, has the only true cave in the area complete with pigeons and the occasional bat.

The next day was really rainy in the morning, so we decided to head north to Columbus, Ohio to explore the Center of Science and Industry. Since it costs $25 per adult and $20 per child for general admission, this could have been an expensive proposition for my 5 person family. However, we are members of another science center that participates in the Association of Science-Technology Centers. Basically, this means that we were able to get our admission for free.

Science Center Tip: If you have kids and like to go to science centers, you can get into 350+ centers for free by becoming a member of one of them. We found a low-cost science center (Iron Hill Science Center) and became a member of it, which allows us to get into some pricier centers for free.

After the rain cleared up, we traveled to Hocking Hills State Park, where we did our favorite hike of all, “Old Man’s Cave.” While there, we saw some incredible waterfalls, cliffs, and a gorge carved from the sandstone in the area.

What we did right

One of the best things that we did for this trip was to stay together with our friends in a house outside of the state park. This gave our two families the opportunity to relax and hang out together more than we would have if we just met for an occasional hike or dinner.

Renting a house also allowed us to cook dinners instead of having to go out to eat. I love going out for dinner, especially if I am hanging out with some friends or on a date with my wife. However, we knew that it would be much easier to eat dinner at the house instead of having to find a place to eat after hiking all day. Plus, the kids had the opportunity to hang out and play together instead of having to wait in a restaurant.

We got the house through VRBO. I haven’t used them much in the past, but I found that they were pretty easy to use. Plus, each family only paid $80 per night to stay at the house, so it was a good thing financially too!

Another good thing was avoiding the many pricey vacation options that are available in the area. We could have easily spent $400 on four-wheelers or zip-lining, but we probably had just as much fun hiking as we would have with either of these two activities. As I talked about in my article on traveling to Disney World, it is very easy to fall into the trap of vacation spending when we are on vacation. Remember, that your spending from vacation will still follow you home!

My overall lesson

As you may know if you have read this blog, I love traveling all over the United States and using credit card rewards to spend less money on my travel. However, it also makes sense to explore the area around where we live. If you live within a 4 or 5 hour drive of Hocking Hills, I would definitely suggest doing a short weekend trip down there. Or if you are driving through the area, it would be a great place to stop off for a 2 hour hike.

But I wouldn’t suggest heading across the country to see it, just like I wouldn’t suggest traveling across the country for other state parks.

I think that the overall lesson is there are many great vacation choices within a short drive from everyone’s home. Especially for those of us with limited budgets (which is just about everyone), we need to make sure that we take advantage of the location that we live in and the great vacation opportunities that are close to our homes.

Let us know in the comments about some of the hidden gems you have found close to your home!

And thanks for reading!

~Nathan

Let’s keep living a great life … with the help of money. So what’s next?

• You can travel for free by using rewards credit cards.
• You can get motivated and get out of debt.
• You can check out the next post or the previous post and continue to learn.

But no matter what you decide to do, let’s leave the ordinary behind and take action today!