Hampton Inn & Suites Columbus Polaris
Hampton Inn & Suites Columbus Polaris is a budget-friendly stay in Downtown Columbus, Upper Arlington — a no-frills base for seeing central Downtown Columbus and the rest of the area affordably.
The surrounding Downtown Columbus district is one of the most convenient parts of Upper Arlington to stay in, with restaurants, cafés and transport links close by.
Rates shift with the season and with demand, so the live price on the booking page is always the one to trust — tap through for tonight's or your dates' real availability.
Key facts
Around Downtown Columbus
The Upper Arlington booking trap nobody warns you about
The trap is the address. Because Upper Arlington has very little hotel stock inside its own borders, a lot of listings marketed as Upper Arlington are in Columbus — on Olentangy River Road, near Bethel Road, or off Henderson — and the difference between "5 minutes from Tremont Center" and "across SR-315 in the Bethel Road corridor" is a 15-minute drive at rush hour. Check the street name against the city line before you book: Tremont Road, Northwest Boulevard, Fishinger Road, Reed Road, Riverside Drive and Arlington Avenue are inside; Olentangy River Road and Lane Avenue east of Kenny are not. The second half of the trap is the Ohio State football schedule, which is published months ahead and which controls prices for a suburb sitting 2.5 miles from a 100,000-seat stadium. Look at the seven home dates first, then pick your weekend.
The golf pilgrimage needs the same reality check. Scioto Country Club at 2196 Riverside Drive — Donald Ross design, 1926 US Open, 1931 Ryder Cup, 1968 PGA Championship, and where Jack Nicklaus learned the game before playing for the Upper Arlington High School Golden Bears — is private, as is Muirfield Village in Dublin. What you can do is the Jack Nicklaus Museum on Olentangy River Road, the Scarlet and Gray courses of the Ohio State University Golf Club on Tremont Road just north of the city, and Memorial Tournament tickets in late May. And the area people wrongly skip is Grandview Heights with Marble Cliff: 3 miles from Tremont Center, the best concentration of restaurants within reach of Upper Arlington, and usually $30-60 a night cheaper than the equivalent room in the Short North.
Where to stay in Upper Arlington: the areas compared
Start with an honest fact: Upper Arlington is almost entirely residential, so most rooms sold as "Upper Arlington" sit a mile or two over the city line in Columbus — along Olentangy River Road, Lane Avenue, or off Henderson Road near SR-315. Inside the city, the useful anchors are Tremont, Kingsdale, Northam and the Mallway District. Tremont puts you at Tremont Center and the main library at 2800 Tremont Road, with Northam Park's tennis courts and pool a short walk north; the Mallway District, the 1920s shopfront row on Arlington Avenue, is the one genuinely strollable block in the city. Kingsdale, at Tremont Road and Northwest Boulevard, is the closest node to SR-315 and the Ohio State campus and the easiest base if you are driving in and out daily. Old Arlington, the National Register historic district of 1913-1930s houses on curving streets like Cambridge Boulevard, is where you walk rather than sleep — expect short-term rentals, not hotel desks.
Everything else is a trade between price and distance. Barrington, Canterbury and Ridgeview are quiet mid-city and north-city residential pockets around Fishinger and Reed Roads where a car is non-negotiable; Golf View Heights, Arlington Ridge and Riverside Bend sit out west near Riverside Drive, Griggs Reservoir Park and Scioto Country Club, which is the pick if parks and water are the point of the trip. For actual hotel choice, the Ohio State University District and Grandview Heights (with tiny Marble Cliff, population under 700, wedged between them) are 3 miles from Tremont Center and usually run $130-200; Dublin, Worthington and Hilliard sit on the I-270 ring at $95-160; Short North, Victorian Village, Downtown Columbus and German Village are the top of the ladder at $190-330 and the furthest from Upper Arlington's parks, about 6 miles. Clintonville, Bexley, Powell and Delaware are worth it only if a specific thing draws you — Whetstone Park of Roses, Capital University, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, or Alum Creek State Park.
Best time to visit Upper Arlington, month by month
Late April to mid-June and mid-September to late October are the best weeks for what people come here for — the parks, the Olentangy Trail and the Old Arlington streets — and only the second of those is expensive. January and February are the cheapest months of the year, with mid-range rooms around $85-115 and highs near 36°F; March jumps for one weekend when the Arnold Sports Festival fills downtown Columbus. April and early May are green, wet and reasonable at $110-150, apart from Ohio State commencement weekend in early May. The Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village in Dublin lands in late May or early June and pushes Dublin and Upper Arlington rates to $250-400 for four or five nights. Late June and July are humid, in the mid-80s°F, and busy with the Fourth of July parade, Red White and Boom on 3 July downtown, and the Ohio State Fair from late July.
August is the month to watch: Ohio State move-in in the third week strips cheap rooms out of the OSU District and Grandview for several days. The Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival takes over Northam Park on the first Monday of September, and from then until late November the Ohio State home football schedule — usually seven Saturdays at Ohio Stadium, 2.5 miles from Tremont Center — is the single biggest thing affecting what you pay. The Michigan game returns to Columbus in even-numbered years and is the most expensive night of any year here. The Columbus Marathon in mid-October adds one more busy Sunday. December is quiet and cheap again once commencement passes, with snow usually light and the trails still walkable.
