Downtown Columbus

Capitol Square at Broad and High. Free guided tours run through the day on weekdays, roughly hourly from mid-morning; the 1861 rotunda and the Ohio map room in the atrium are the payoff. The ground-floor museum and the Lincoln statue on the west lawn cost nothing at all.

59 Spruce Street, beside the convention center. Two floors of stalls, including the original Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams counter. Crucial planning note: most vendors shut around 5pm and the building is dead by dinner, so treat it as a lunch stop, not an evening one. Budget $15 to $20 a head.

333 West Broad Street, on the west bank of the Scioto opposite downtown. Around $25 for adults, less for children, and easily four hours with the dinosaur gallery and the planetarium. Park in the COSI lot for about $10 or walk over the Rich Street bridge from Genoa Park in six minutes.

Nationwide Arena, 200 West Nationwide Boulevard. Upper-bowl tickets often start near $30 midweek. The value is the pre-game hour on Neil Avenue and Vine Street, when every patio is full; after the final buzzer the whole district empties in about forty minutes.

Civic Center Drive between Broad and Main. The Bicentennial Park fountain runs in summer and children stand in it fully clothed; there are free evening concerts on the park stage. In winter it is a bare, windy promenade, but the skyline view from the Main Street bridge is the best free photograph downtown.

High Street at Rich Street, on the old City Center mall site. Free lawn concerts and film nights most summer weeks, food trucks along the Third Street edge, and a carousel that costs about a dollar a ride. Bring a blanket; the folding chairs go fast by 6.30pm.

John Glenn Columbus International Airport is seven miles east; a rideshare downtown costs about $25 to $30 and takes fifteen minutes, twenty in traffic. Columbus has no passenger rail at all, so ignore any search result that mentions a train station; intercity buses use the terminal on East Town Street. COTA runs the city buses at $2 a ride or $4.50 for an all-day pass, and Line 2 along High Street is the one you will actually use, every ten to fifteen minutes between downtown, the Short North and the university. To reach Upper Arlington, drive: Route 315 north to Lane Avenue or Fifth Avenue, fifteen minutes. Inside downtown, walk — the grid blocks are short and nothing worth seeing is more than a mile apart.

Yes, within a rough square from Nationwide Boulevard to Main Street and from the river to Fourth Street. Blocks are short and flat, and the Statehouse, North Market, COSI and the Arena District are all inside a twenty-minute walk of each other. Beyond that square you are in surface parking and office towers. Anything in Upper Arlington, Bexley or Clintonville needs a car or a bus.

The High Street corridor, the Arena District and Gay Street are busy and fine well past midnight. The problem downtown is emptiness, not menace: the side streets east of Fourth and the parking-lot blocks south of Main are deserted after dark and feel it. Stick to lit main streets, or take a $9 rideshare rather than a fifteen-minute walk through empty blocks.

About six miles, or fifteen minutes by car via Route 315 to Lane Avenue or Fifth Avenue. Rush hour on 315 southbound in the morning and northbound around 5pm adds ten minutes. A rideshare between the two runs roughly $16 to $22. There is no direct fast bus, so if you plan to visit Upper Arlington daily, budget for a rental car.

Hotel garages charge $15 to $25 overnight and valet is $35 to $45, so ask before booking. Public garages around the Statehouse and Columbus Commons run about $10 to $12 for an evening, and metered street parking is free after 10pm and all day Sunday. On event nights the surface lots around Nationwide Arena jump to $25 to $30 flat.