Columbus, OH
A note before you plan: Thurman's suffered an electrical fire on April 12, 2026, and is closed indefinitely while the family repairs the building; their own site promises the reopening day will come. When it does, this is the German Village landmark it has been since Nick Suclescy opened it in 1942: four generations of the same family, walls of signed dollar bills and Ohio State memorabilia, the three-quarter-pound Thurman Burger piled with ham, two cheeses, mushrooms, and onions, and the Thurmanator, two 12-ounce patties stacked, born as a dare for athletes in town for Arnold Schwarzenegger's fitness weekend and later featured on Man v. Food. No reservations, lines out the door, about 20 minutes from the field. Until the fire damage is fixed, the fourth generation serves the famous burger at Son of Thurman in Galena, open daily 11 to 9, about 25 minutes northeast of the field.
Officially "The Ohio State University Don Scott Field." One of the few major university-operated GA airports — home to the Center for Aviation Studies, OSU's pilot training program, and the Austin E. Knowlton Executive Terminal with NetJets. KOSU sees significant Buckeye corporate and university traffic — Saturdays in the fall can get busy with football charters and alumni traffic. The airport is a 10-minute drive from Ohio Stadium (the "Horseshoe") and the OSU campus.
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.
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.
This quiet Union County field sits in the middle of an unlikely automotive capital. In 1982 Honda built the first Japanese-owned car plant on American soil here at Marysville — the first US-made Accord, "USA 001," rolled off the line on November 1 that year — and the complex has since grown into Ohio's largest employer. Northwest of the plant, near East Liberty, lies the Transportation Research Center: a 4,500-acre proving ground born from Ohio State engineering research in the early 1970s, anchored by a 7.5-mile high-speed test oval that is a genuine landmark from the air — a vast banked ring scribed into the farmland.
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.