In honor of the United States’ (U.S.) 250th anniversary, Ohio launched the “Trails and Tales” initiative, giving a new reason for Ohioans and visitors to travel around “The Heart of it All.”
Spots in and around Toledo have been highlighted in the five trails announced for this summer, including the Ohio Air and Space Trail, Lake Erie to Ohio River Trail, Innovation Trail, Creativity Trail and Transportation Trail.
“We wanted to find a way to highlight all of the sites across Ohio that already exist. We’re really trying to show the ways that Ohio has revolutionized the country,” said Haley Martin, the Trails and Tales project coordinator.
Across the five trails, Toledo and the surrounding areas comprise 20 locations, with some appearing on multiple trails, for a total of 25 stops.
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Full list of surrounding locations per trail:
- Ohio Air and Space Trail: Imagination Station
- Lake Erie to Ohio River Trail: Canal Experience at Providence Metropark, Fort Meigs Historic Site, Wolcott Heritage Center, Toledo Zoo, J&M Cruise Lines, National Museum of the Great Lakes, Tony Packo’s, University of Toledo Lake Erie Center and Maumee Bay State Park
- Innovation Trail: National Construction Equipment Museum, Toledo Museum of Art and Imagination Station
- Creativity Trail: Packer Creek Pottery, Glass City Riverwalk, Toledo Lucas County Public Library – Nancy Drew Collection, Sacred Steel Music & History Museum, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion and The Toledo Zoo
- Transportation Trail: Canal Experience at Providence Metropark, Wolcott Heritage Center, National Museum of the Great Lakes, Millbury Classic Cars and Truck Museum and Elmore Train Depot Museum.
If you visit six spots for each trail, some of which count more than one, you get an exclusive trail patch distinctive to the completed trail.
Even though you only need six stops to get a patch, if you’re feeling up for it, you can travel to all the sites listed.
In November, a sixth trail, the Leadership Trail, will be announced.
“It’s going to highlight people from Ohio who are wonderful leaders. Now all the presidential sites are going to be on that, but even things like indigenous leaders, women’s suffrage leaders, the underground railroad leaders, all those types of people, that’s who we’re looking for for this trail,” Martin said.
Once the sixth trail is up and running, you can collect another badge, giving you six exclusive badges, completing the “America 250 Ohio Program.”
In order to receive badges for your travels, you have to register for the trails.
To log where you have been, you have to reserve a passport. Once you reserve your passport, you can go to the stops and scan a QR code or type in a code to log that you have been there. They will have signage directing you to the code, but you can always ask a staff member for help as well.
“All people have to do is go visit the site; they’ll scan a QR code that should be available at check-in. Some of our trail sites are across multiple different trails; they’ll need to make sure they check in for every single trail the site is on,” Martin said.
And people are already traveling across the “Heart of it All.”
“We’ve actually already had two people complete and earn a patch and we had over 200 people checking in,” Martin said.
For more information on Ohio’s “Trails and Tales,” go to ohio.brightrtravel.com.
