What to Do in Athens, Ohio: A Weekend Guide to The Ridges, Local Eats & Ohio University

It's graduation weekend and you're driving to Athens, OH for a friend who is graduating. You figured you would just get a hotel a day or two before like you always do without realizing what graduation weekend means. Every hotel was pretty much fully booked and now you are on the hook for $790.49 for two nights at Fairfield by Marriott. This is your biggest warning: if you are traveling to a college town in May, make sure you book in advance.

I spent four total days in Athens with two of those days being travel days. I was not able to do everything I set out to do as graduation took up so much time and I partied a little harder than I should have. This is what I did between graduation ceremonies and graduation parties.

This was a three-night stay, an almost four-day ordeal. I booked last minute and ended up paying $790.49 for two nights at the Fairfield by Marriott. The hotel was very nice, upper mid-range quality. The breakfast was good, but it was your basic hotel breakfast. This is not worth almost $800 for an average weekend; I would say you're getting a great deal at $100 per night and about a standard rate at $150 a night.

Now, there are always cheaper options for booking this hotel, but I would avoid unknown third-party platforms for cheap booking. Specifically, I have seen a super.com listing and I would never use this site. It has shady business practices and secretly signs you up for a monthly subscription fee. I was paying for a service monthly for months because when you book through them, it's hidden that you're signing up for their subscription. Super.com is on my blacklist, as is eDreams (a whole other story).

For budget travelers, HomeTown Inn is a solid option. We were upcharged again because of graduation weekend. It was around $120 compared to Days Inn trying to charge over $300. It's a great budget location with two caveats: it's on the side of the highway, so there can be noise, and you'll need to drive into town so the location is a little farther, but not too far. If you're on a budget, this hotel works.

With the local graduate, we started somewhere that was not crowded. If you're looking for hiking in Athens, Ohio, the Ridges is the best place to start, at the compost facility parking lot. This is where we entered the Outdoor Museum on the Ridges, with no crowds and easy free parking. We walked from B1 to R2/B2, up through the red route until R4/Y4, then continued on the yellow route until Y1/B5, continued on the blue route toward B6, and back to the compost facility parking lot (Map in Itinerary).

It took about three hours, and we were taking our time exploring and walking the trails. Your first stop if you follow this route is Radar Hill, a recognizable landmark in Athens, an outlook where you can see some of the rural hills of Ohio. From there you continue to the observatory, which is not publicly accessible. Walking down from the observatory is the State Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery, Peter E. Nagy Memorial Pond along the Ridges Cemeteries Nature Walk. Then you make it to the main attraction near Y7. It's listed as Dairy Lane Park on the map. Head to that marker, take a left, and you can walk to and see the asylum. You have reached Ohio University Ridges. This is one of the most significant historical sites in Athens, Ohio.

The asylum and surrounding buildings create an eerie old-time abandoned feeling despite being populated and home to an art museum and police station. The brick roads and boarded-up buildings with Black Vultures (Coragyps atratus) perched overhead lent themselves to this eerie and intriguing atmosphere. The architecture was amazing and it was all just scenic and felt unique. The buildings were overgrown as well. Just walking around this area was worth it—you really do not need anything else; the outside and walking around these buildings was amazing. We made our way to the front.

Within this building complex is the Kennedy Art Museum. This is a free art museum open to the public where they sold this awesome T-shirt I bought from their museum gift shop. The museum is very nice and colorful with some nice pieces in their galleries. I think the biggest reason to stop at the art museum is the pictures and drawings of what the full asylum looked like. These photos were very interesting and told you a little of the history as well. It is 100% worth stopping by if you are already walking around outside.

After some more photos and walking around we headed back to the Ohio Outdoor Museum on the Ridges and walked back to the compost facility parking lot. It was a great three-hour adventure.

Larry's Dawg House is a local favorite and has greasy, good burgers and dogs. I got the burger because I needed a big meal after driving up there and it tasted, great but it's a messy burger to eat. The burger was great and I would have eaten there again if I could. It is talked up by some of the college people I met.

Another talked-up place was Shade's Restaurant, another burger joint. Larry's Dawg House was fast-food style, and Shade's was sit-down style. I ordered a burger there as well and I would say I prefer Larry's burger but Shade's is very good too, and not as messy.

After graduation, it is hard to find a place to eat as everything is absolutely packed, but we found Lulu's Casa El Camino near Fairfield by Marriott. I found out immediately why this place had open spots: it was bring-your-own-beer. It was a dry restaurant on purpose to build a family-friendly environment. I got shrimp fajitas and it tasted great, so the food was good, but do not expect your average Mexican restaurant with beer and margaritas. If that is a dealbreaker, then skip it, but otherwise it is a great classic Mexican restaurant that will hit that spot. It has an interesting story behind it as well. The owner, Lulu, named the restaurant after a dream she had about a serene walking path lined with flowers. When she and her late husband Juan arrived to open the restaurant, they discovered the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway was right next to it. That's the same trail I walked that evening.

I even went to Texas Roadhouse because of the graduate's request. I got a steak and it was good, but I would say over the past few years Texas Roadhouse has gone down in quality. I would skip this chain and eat at local spots if you can. These were just some of the places to eat in Athens, Ohio.

It was a weird point in the day; we finished hiking but we were going out later that day so we only had an hour or two. We decided to check out campus and downtown. We walked down Court Street and looked at some shops before making our way to the Ohio University Campus Plaza or green space. It was a short walk but it was interesting to look around and walk around the buildings. They had a nice chapel with a steeple and it was a good spot for photos as well.

I actually like to go visit college campuses while traveling and see the differences between them. I have stopped by Baylor University in Waco, Texas and Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, to name a few universities I have walked around or seen games at.

This was a shorter activity, so we decided to go to the Dairy Barn Art Center, which was closed at the time, but we did the Ora Anderson Trail. This was a shorter hike but enjoyable; I would say this is a nice afternoon or late-afternoon walk if you have free time, but I will tell you that I preferred the Ridges and the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway, which were much more scenic.

This is Athens' scenic biking path that goes by this wonderful river and into wooded areas. It's scenic and worth it. We parked at Larry's Dawg House to walk to the bike trail, split off at the fork heading right from Larry's up the bike trail, crossed a nice bridge over the Hocking River, then took the next right at the following fork to Armitage Road. It dead-ended there, but there were train tracks, so we walked them for two miles until the tracks met the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway, then walked back to Larry's Dawg House down the bikeway; train tracks up, bikeway down. This was a great walk to do in the evening with great temperatures.

It was graduation weekend and most bars were packed. We were meeting with friends and went to the wrong bar at first. Bob's Bar, which does not even list on Google. We walked in, and there were zero people there. In fact, the only online reference to this bar I could find is from Ohio University's student newspaper, The Post. On graduation night when every bar was packed, Bob’s was empty, that was a bad sign and our friends weren't there so we left immediately.

We then went to Cat's Eye Saloon, where we meant to be and they had $15 bottles of champagne for graduation. It was Cook's California Champagne and with our group, we kept the bottles coming. We went to North End and Stevens and both bars were packed. It was a great time at all the bars. It's all one street, N Court St, and it's full of bars. Graduation night is definitely a great time to go if you're going there for nightlife.

A big stop at the end of the night for most people was Courtside Pizza where they got pizza before going back to the house to crash. It was a great time. Then in the morning, I realized I had lost my wallet. I looked everywhere all over Athens, asked every bar I went to, to no avail, and made a report to the police. Someone actually turned it in with the cash still in it too. It was later that same day, definitely lucky, and the first time it has happened to me.

Whether you're planning to visit Athens for graduation weekend or just passing through, this is a spot worth visiting. Compared to Jesse Owens State Park, Athens is more populated, and you have cell service the entire time. It is about a 45-minute drive from Hocking Hills which I did not get to visit. Hocking Hills is hyped up and is definitely somewhere you should visit, but not at the expense of the locations you are actually staying at.

I would say Athens, Ohio, with Ohio University Campus, downtown walkability with bars on every corner, the Ridges with deep history and amazing architecture, plus the scenic bikeway, railroad tracks, and iconic restaurants like Shade's and Larry's, is more than enough to make this a standalone location and tourist spot, not just a gateway to Hocking Hills.