Ohio Day Trip: Toledo | FrickinDannie.com

Let me preface this post by saying that this trip occurred in the end of October, and the COVID situation is and always has been fluid. Please check with venues and local authorities for updated COVID protocol.

Whenever we travel to a place we’ve not explored much of, we obviously like to seek out something that is unique to that place that I always seem to find by chance. In Akron, that was Stan Hywet Hall. In Toledo, it was the National Museum of the Great Lakes!

We visited in the end of October, on one of the first super cold spells of the season. Being next to the lake only exacerbated that, but it was totally worth it. There are two main components to the museum: the inside (the museumy-museum part) and the two boats outside. The Col. James M. Schoonmaker and Tug Ohio are actually closed in the winter months, and were about to be closed for the season (they are back May 1!).

The museum is open 10-5 Monday through Saturday, 11-5 Sundays, and closed on Tuesdays during the winter season.

Adult admission is $10 for the museum ($16 if you include the boats — which I completely recommend) and $8/$14 for children.

The inside of the museum is a quick visit, but has a lot of fascinating information about shipwrecks and tons of models of boats and 3D maps of the Great Lakes.

After the museum it was time to warm up with lunch and a beer at a local brewery. Just a few minutes down the road was Maumee Bay Brewing Company, much recommended by NW Ohio friends. We had a sandwich/salad combo and a drink, then headed out for our next adventure!

As we do everywhere we go — we had to check out the Toledo Zoo!

Details: Open 10-4 Wednesday-Sunday during winter, open 10-12 on Mondays. No reservations required. Limited to 50% capacity. Admission is $22 adults, $19 kids. (If you’re a member of another AZA zoo, ask about the discounted admission!)

I’m not sure if it was pure luck, the chilly weather, or that it was a school day, but we nearly had the zoo to ourselves. And what a great zoo it is! I hope to get back for a visit when it’s a bit warmer. It was a lot larger than I expected and had an awesome variety of animals. We are SO lucky in Ohio to have so many wonderful zoos closeby. I FULLY recommend it!