More than three thousand years ago, nomads in Central Asia moved from place to place with their homes on their backs. The structures — wood frames covered with felted wool or animal fur — were light, yet they could withstand the winds of the barren steppe.
Add some other modern conveniences, and it makes for glamping at its finest. Turn the page to check out a few options for yurt stays right here in Ohio.
Remember your first roller-coaster ride?
Kilner, a chemistry teacher at Eastlake North High School, is president of the Great Ohio Coaster Club, where he says he’s formed lasting friendships with fellow coaster enthusiasts — whom he describes as “friendly people who want everyone to have fun.” But the relationships, he says, go deeper than a common admiration for corkscrews and loop-de-loops. “I lost my dad last year,” he says. “I didn’t publicize it, so I was amazed at how many people from the club reached out to me.”
A deeply worn long wooden table, believed to date back more than 400 years, is the centerpiece of the Contraxx Furniture offices in McConnelsville.
Early in his career, Workman learned how the national furniture world works — through trade shows, corporate showrooms, and long days selling into a system built for scale. During his years at Taylor Woodcraft, a McConnelsville-based school furniture manufacturer, he built relationships with major retailers, including Williams-Sonoma. He began supplying consumer pieces — starting with stools — and saw how demand could push standardized production toward customization.
In the small Lake Erie waterfront town of Fairport Harbor, east of Cleveland, Sheila Consaul is a celebrity of sorts.
Consaul, a communications consultant, has painstakingly turned the lighthouse into her summer dream home in those 15 years since she ponied up $71,010 for it at a U.S. General Services Administration federal auction. She lives and works there from May to October, then returns to her winter home in Virginia for the remainder of the year. The following photos are a peek inside the historic light, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2025.
When hikers on a specific path in Ohio — whether tackling miles on a through-hike or heading out for a shorter day trip — enter town, there’s a chance they’ll spot a simple sign: Buckeye Trail Town.
The Trail Town program, launched by the Buckeye Trail Association in 2012, has grown steadily to include communities across the state that can be accessed from the trail. The program is designed to support hikers, but the benefits run both ways. As interest in the Buckeye Trail continues to grow, with thousands of followers tracking and sharing their journeys, these towns are becoming destinations in their own right, drawing visitors who might not have otherwise found their way there.
Imagine taking a statewide road trip only to find every highway restaurant, hotel, and gas station closed. For a traveler, being tired, hungry, and in danger of running out of gas makes the journey difficult, if not impossible.
One way humans can help is by planting a pollinator pathway, creating an environment where those farm and garden helpers don’t have to work so hard just to get by.
A pollinator pathway is a grouping of native, diverse plants that help beneficial insects and birds survive in developed areas. Made up of plants that bloom in succession, they provide corridors of food and shelter from spring to fall. Typically located along roads, sidewalks, and yards, these pathways provide different landscapes needed to create bridges between habitat areas that might be too far apart otherwise.
When we moved into our house nearly three decades ago, there was a small pond in the backyard garden, its shape fixed by a hard plastic liner. The pond was choked with excess vegetation that hid, somewhere in the depths, a small pump that did not pump.
Even a small pond adds beauty and interest to a backyard, says Justin Miller, general manager of Aquarium Adventure in Columbus, and for the homeowner, an added value is “stress relief.”
“You sit out there with the sound and the movement of the water and it just relaxes you,” he says.
The early hours of February 22 were typical for a Sunday morning in rural Highland County.
“Over long periods of time, small changes in stress in the earth can tip a fault over the edge,” Brudzinski says. “How many cocked guns are left and how many faults are really primed? There is no way to know; we really can’t anticipate when and where they will occur. Our ability to forecast earthquakes is not great.”
While Hillsboro may have been the site of the most recent shaker, Brudzinski says that Anna, a town of 1,500 people between Dayton and Lima, is the earthquake epicenter of the Buckeye State.
Ted Welser, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ohio University, focuses his academic research on “the intersection of digital social systems, organizations, and social change.”
“Climbing combines physical activity — a sportlike activity — with a meaningful cultural experience,” he says. “It’s a reason to travel and experience new places. I’ve spent hundreds of days climbing in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Alabama, traveling to places that are remote. I’ve enjoyed meeting people there who are climbers and not climbers.”
Shortly after he earned his PhD in sociology from the University of Washington, he and his wife, Laura Black, moved to Athens with their two kids to be professors at OU.
