The best way to experience Cleveland on a summer day is from the water—Lake Erie and the connecting Cuyahoga River—on board Goodtime III, which bills itself as the largest quadruple-deck, 1,000 passenger boat on the Great Lakes. Just three hours down the Thruway from Buffalo, Cleveland is a fellow rust belt city that has been rediscovering its glorious history and has a wealth of fun family adventures.
Travel & Leisure named Cleveland a “best place to travel in 2024.” The magazine also named Cleveland one of the best food cities in the country. USA Today ranked Lake Erie No. 1 for “Best Lake” and “Best Lake for Water Sports.”
The cruise, offered several times daily, provides one-of-a-kind views of downtown Cleveland, the Flats, the Cuyahoga River, and Lake Erie. Many families and children were enjoying our two-hour cruise along the Lake Erie waterfront and the river. There are also lunch and dinner cruises.
Unlike Buffalo, Cleveland greatly benefited when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened back in 1959. We learned that 22,000 jobs and $4.7 billion in annual economic activity is tied to the roughly 13 million tons of cargo that move through the Cleveland Harbor each year.
In recent years, more passenger cruise lines have chosen Cleveland as a Great Lakes port stop. Cleveland has been rated the No. 2 destination within the Great Lakes by cruise passengers.
Our trip down the Cuyahoga River on a beautiful summer afternoon took us past kayakers, boathouses, restaurants with outdoor dining along the water, and under many bridges—swing bridges, lift bridges, truss bridges—and provided outstanding views of the city.
Our guide tells us about the infamous fire on the river when the city became fodder for late night comics. The fire was the rallying cry for the environmental movement and it led to the Clean Water Act. Today the river has been restored and is full of fish, birds, and recreational boaters.
The downtown Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a dazzling I.M. Pei designed pyramid and ode to rock and roll. It is next door to the Goodtime III dock and office. It was a Cleveland disk jockey, Alan Freed, who named the music that was rocking the world “rock and roll” in 1951.
Thanks to the Freed legend (and some intense lobbying), Cleveland beat out the likes of New York, Chicago, and Memphis to become home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. It opened in September 1995.
Today, more than half a million pilgrims each year visit the museum's interactive exhibits and collections. For me, as a long-time Rolling Stones fan, the best part was the videos of early concerts with Mick and the boys looking impossibly young. It is not hard to be a long-time fan since they have been performing and recording for more than 60 years.
This exhibit is part of the Legends of Rock and Roll display area that includes The Beatles, Elvis, and other legends. Check out the listening stations where visitors can don earphones and choose their favorite rock songs.
On as previous visit, I discovered a touch of home with displays of Buffalo radio legends Sandy Beach, Danny Neaverth, and Tom Shannon. They were all featured as hall of fame inductees and were stars of WKBW radio in its days as a rock and roll powerhouse. Alas, the long-time Buffalo radio stars weren’t on display on my most recent visit since displays change.
Next door is the Great Lakes Science Center, known as a great place for families and children. It is one of the nation’s leading science and technology centers, featuring hundreds of hands-on exhibits, the NASA Glenn Visitor Center, OWNIMAX Theater, and a center for world-class scientific research.
For space fans, the NASA Glenn Visitor Center is must-see. Look inside the actual 1973 Skylab 3 Apollo Command Module (It is very small inside). Experience a multi-media trip through landmark moments in space history. See artifacts from John Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission. Check out a real moon rock. View actual space-flown suits from Skylab and Apollo, including one issued to Buzz Aldrin.
Tour the restored 618-foot Steamship William G. Mather and see what life was like on board a working Great Lakes freighter. Explore the 1925-built Mather from stem to stern and see its huge cargo holds, brass and oak pilot house, elegant guest quarters, and four-story engine room. Walk the deck and experience the golden age of steamships on one of the best.
The 183-acre Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is always a family favorite and offers several truly thrilling close-up encounters with wild animals. There is a lot of walking, but there are free trams so take advantage of the rides and the opportunity to learn about the zoo from the driver.
Elephants are always popular. This zoo takes the elephant interactions one step further. Near the Main Entrance, the African Elephant Crossing offers exceptional viewing areas for visitors, including open-air viewing, a nose-to-trunk window, an elevated feeding station, and a gated crossing where people can watch as the elephants pass by to migrate from one yard to the next.
The highlight of the African Savanna is surely the giraffes with their incredibly long necks and gentle nature. This is the tallest living mammal, standing an average of 16 to 18 feet for a male and a foot or two less for a female. They have long black tongues averaging 18 inches.
The seasonal giraffe feeding station offers very close up views. Visitors can buy large lettuce leaves and stand by the edge of the platform with the leaf. Soon we are rewarded with the sweet face of a giraffe and his very ample tongue gently taking the leaf from our hands.
Other highlights are the gorillas, monkeys, and several species of lemur, rare snow leopards, lions and bears, as well as kangaroos with babies in their pouches, wallabies, and orangutans including a baby orangutan in the Rain Forest exhibit. There is also a carousel where visitors can ride zoo animal look-alikes.
Everyone loves food and the place to be for food of all kinds is the West Side Market, the city’s oldest publicly owned market. Architects who designed many other classic city buildings, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, created the yellow brick market house with an imposing interior concourse that has stood as a centerpiece of the market since 1912. Its 137-foot clock tower has been a city landmark for more than a century.
The Travel Channel and the Food Network have highlighted the many delights of the market that draws more than a million visitors a year. Food Network Magazine named it the “Best Food Lover’s Market.” The city’s rich ethnic diversity is celebrated and reflected in the market’s varied offerings.
The market is home to more than 100 vendors offering a wide array of meats, vegetables, fruits, seafood, baked goods, cheeses, herbs, candy, nuts, and ready-to-eat foods. The market restaurant offers a good place for breakfast or lunch. Bring a cooler since the offerings are so tempting it would be hard to leave without buying some items to bring home.
If you have family members who are super fans of A Christmas Story, Cleveland is the place to be. In fact, visitors come to Cleveland from long distances just to experience the house from the movie. The facade of the A Christmas Story House was used for the 1983 family holiday movie favorite that plays every year in households across the country.
The film’s story was set in Indiana and the interiors were shot on movie sets, but Brian Jones, the creator of this tourist mecca meticulously recreated the interior as it was in the movie.
In December visitors can run in the A Christmas Story 5k/10k, with routes between Public Square in Downtown Cleveland and the house on Tremont. Hundreds of participants come out to enjoy this fun-run where folks dress up like the movie’s characters (some even run wearing Leg Lamp costumes).
The house offers year-round tours and the option for overnight stays. Guests can recreate their favorite scenes from the beloved film, pose with the iconic leg lamp and replica BB gun, hide under the kitchen sink like Randy, or decode a secret message in the bathroom while washing your mouth out with Lifebuoy soap.
Across the street is the Museum which features a treasure trove of props from the movie, including the family car, toys from Higbee’s window display, the chalkboard from Miss Shields’ classroom, and an Official Red Ryder Air Rifle BB gun-produced specially for the film. There is a gift shop next to the museum with a wide array of movie memorabilia and holiday collectibles, including leg lamps and bunny suits.
About ten minutes from downtown is the University Circle area, home to one of the most concentrated square miles of arts and culture in the country. Cleveland has a rich industrial history and city institutions have benefitted from the generosity of wealthy industrialists who include John D. Rockefeller.
The more than century year old Cleveland Museum of Art is a gem among the museums and galleries. It consistently ranks as one of the best comprehensive art museums in the country. Best of all, it is free and invites families. Come for an hour or so.
Don’t miss the interactive ArtLens Exhibition that encourages engagement with art. The exhibit uses gesture-sensing projections that respond to body movement, immersing visitors in the experience. There are regular daily docent-led tours and special programs for children.
Next door is the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, known as a great place for families and children. It is also a center for world-class scientific research.
Explore Sears Hall of Human Ecology, Reinberger Hall of Astronomy, Ohio Archaeology, the Wade Gallery of Gems & Jewels, Kirtland Hall of Prehistoric Life, and the Human Origins Gallery. In the Main Level, gallery highlights include Balto, the heroic Alaskan dog; Happy, the museum’s first dinosaur; Jan, the museum’s young tyrannosaur; a triceratops and even a moon rock.
Save time for the Smead Discovery Center. It is an intergenerational space designed for all ages to enjoy together. Activities and exhibits change frequently.
Here are some special events coming up this month:
• August 25 is One World Day, a big celebration of the diversity of the city with a population made of 120 different ethnicities. It is held in Cleveland Cultural Gardens, a series of small, specialized gardens representing the many countries in the city today. Each garden also sports a flag of the home country. There will be a parade, naturalization ceremony, ethnic food, music, and cultural performances.
• August 30—September 7 is Cleveland Labor Day Oktoberfest and Ohio’s largest annual outdoor festival. Many visitors dress in German garb, drink beer, enjoy wiener dog races, eat German food, and listen to live music.
• August 31—September 2 is the three-day Cleveland National Air Show on the shore of Lake Erie at the Burke Lakefront Airport.
Travel Tip of the Month: For information on Cleveland visit thisiscleveland.com or call 800-321-1001 or call 216-875-6680.
Deborah Williams lives in Holland, NY and is a veteran travel writer whose work has appeared in national and international publications. She is the recipient of the Society of American Travel Writers’ Lowell Thomas Gold Travel Writing Award.