Lancaster, OH
Closest GA airport to Hocking Hills State Park — Ohio's most spectacular natural area. Hocking Hills features Old Man's Cave, Cedar Falls, Ash Cave, and Conkles Hollow — Carboniferous-era sandstone gorges with hemlock forests, waterfalls, and rock shelters used by Native Americans for thousands of years. Spectacular fall color mid-October. Lancaster itself is a preserved 19th-century town — the Square has a Federal-era courthouse and the boyhood home of General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Columbus is the state capital and Ohio's largest city, and from the John Glenn Columbus airport its center is a short hop southwest. The Ohio Statehouse, finished in 1861, is one of the purest Greek Revival capitols in the country — squared-off and severe, capped not by a soaring dome but by a low drum cupola, so it reads differently than most statehouses. Just south of downtown sits German Village, platted in 1814 and built up by German immigrants into one of the largest privately funded historic districts in the United States — all red brick and cobblestone. The Scioto Mile lines the riverfront, and a statue of John Glenn — Ohio's astronaut-senator, whose name is on the field you departed — stands inside the Statehouse.
Ohio's most spectacular natural area — Carboniferous-era sandstone gorges with hemlock forests, waterfalls, and rock shelters. The famous spots: Old Man's Cave, Cedar Falls, Ash Cave (a massive 700-foot rock recess), Conkles Hollow (a 200-foot deep gorge), and Rock House (a true cave with windows in the cliff). From the air, the gorges cut through the rolling hills like green canyons. Spectacular fall color mid-October — one of Ohio's peak autumn destinations.
One of the largest sets of geometric earthworks in the world — built by the Hopewell culture between 100 BC and 500 AD. The Octagon Earthwork and Great Circle are extraordinary: a perfect octagon enclosing 50 acres connected to a circle 1,054 feet in diameter, all built without metal tools. The earthworks align precisely with the 18.6-year lunar standstill cycle — astronomical engineering 2,000 years ahead of European equivalents. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023 as part of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks. From the air, the geometric perfection is staggering.
You're landing at Ohio State's own airport. Don Scott Field has been the university's airfield since 1943 — named for a two-time All-American quarterback who became a WWII pilot and died in training — and aviation at Ohio State reaches back to 1917, when cadets first flew from what is now the heart of campus. Southeast of the field sits the campus and Ohio Stadium, "the Horseshoe": opened in 1922, the first concrete double-deck stadium in America and once the largest poured-concrete structure in the world, its south end left open in the signature U that gives it the name. It holds over 102,000, and at every home game the marching band spells out Script Ohio — a tradition since 1936 whose i has been dotted by honored guests including astronaut and Ohio son John Glenn.