I’m always excited about planning trips, but my friend Holly, who blogs about thrift, just wrote about making summer travel plans. Check out one.thrifty.wife here: Warmup prompts vacation agenda. She blogged about day and weekend trip ideas in Indiana and Michigan. I’m still working on my list (I have a lot of info about Columbus, Cincinnati and caves to still go through), but at some point I just need to stop and made a roundup of what I’ve found so far.

So below, you will find a list of some of the places in Ohio I have thought sound interesting. You may notice that this list does not include too many sights along the Lake Erie coast in the Sandusky area. That’s because I have already been to many of them and I would like to broaden my horizons, not keep going to the oldies but goodies. That doesn’t mean, though, that I won’t spend my July weekends on the beach at Mitiwanga Park in Huron.

• Sugarcreek: Little Switzerland, Alpine Hills Museum, Artisans’ Mercantile, Dutch Valley Restaurant
• Berlin: Schrock’s Amish Farm, Heini’s Bunker Hill Cheese Company, Calalpa Trading Co. and Old Fashioned Soda Fountain, Wendell August Forge
• Millersburg: Guggisberg Cheese Factory (the home of baby Swiss), Chalet in the Valley (Austrian, Swiss and Amish food), Three Father’s Pewter
• Walnut Creek: Yoder’s Amish Home, Walnut Creek Cheese, Der Dutchman Restaurant, German Culture Museum
• Columbus: Statehouse complex, Franklin Park Conservatory, Topiary Garden at Old Deaf School Park, Nancy’s Restaurant, Ohio Historical Society, American Whistle Corp., Columbus Camera Shop, Ed Jeffers Barber Museum, Thurman Cafe, Sherman House and Georgian Museum, Columbus Washboard Company
• Newark and area: Longaberger Basket Headquarters, Newark Earthenworks, Longaberger Homestead, Velvet Ice Cream Company (and museum), Historic Roscoe Village, Wildwood Music, Mational Heisey Glass Museum
• New Philadelphia: Tuscora Park (miniature amusement park), Broad Run Cheese Factory and Swiss Heritage Winery, Gnadenhutten Historical Society, Trumpet in the Land outdoor drama
• Cleveland: Silver Spartan Diner, West Side Market, Honey Hut Ice Cream Shoppe, Accordion Museum
• Akron: Swensors Drive In Restaurant, Menches Brothers Original Hamburgers
• Canton: National First Ladies Library, William McKinley Memorial, Taggart’s Ice Cream
• Geneva-on-the-Lake: Erieview Park, Eddie’s Grill and Dairy Queen, Spring Hill Orchards, Old Firehouse Winery and Restaurant, Lakehouse Inn and Winery
• Hubbard: Emerald Diner
• Lisbon: Steel Trolley Diner
• Oberlin: Allen Memorial Art Museum
• Loudonville: Landoll’s Mohican
• Mansfield: Ohio State Reformatory, Coney Island Diner, Carousel Magic, Kingwood Center (gardens), Richland Carousel Park, Living Bible Museum and Bible Walk, Olivesburg General Store
• Wilmot: Grandma’s Alpine Homestead Restaurant and the world’s largest cuckoo clock
• Marblehead: Prehistoric Forest and Mystery Hill
• Vermilion: Wollybear Festival
• Toledo: Fritz and Alfredo’s Restaurant
• Perrysburg: Fort Meigs
• Archbold: Sauder Village
• Defiance: Au Glaize Village
• Bryan: Lester’s Diner
• West Liberty: Ohio Caverns, Piatt Castles, Zane Shawnee Caverns, Indian Lake State Park
• Greenville: Garst Museum
• Lima: Allen County Museum
• Piqua: Allisten Manor
• Troy: Brukner Nature Center
• Clifton: Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve
• Wilburforce: National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center
• Fairborn: Foy’s Variety, Halloween and Costume Stores
• Cincinnati and area: Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati Zoo, Newport Aquarium, Jungle Jim’s Grocery, Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum
• Chillicothe and area: Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Tecumseh Outdoor Drama, Sumburger Drive In, Adena State Memorial, Atwood House, Grant Boyhood Home, Grant Birthplace, William Lafferty Memorial Funeral and Carriage Connection, Serpent Mound State Memorial
• Hocking Hills and area: Ravenwood Castle B-B, Underground Railroad Tour in Marietta, Mosser Glass Factory Tour, National Museum of Cambridge Glass, Boyd’s Crytal Art Glass, Theo’s Restaurant

Like me, you probably didn’t know where all of these cities are. I have created a map for you: Ohio trip ideas. I’ll keep updating it to get the actual places on it. Right now, it has only cities marked.

From this list you can probably gather the types of trips I like — glass museums and displays, German food and culture, hamburgers and hot dogs, diners, ice cream, cheese and collections of really random things, like the whistle factory or a collection of swallowed items at the Allen County Museum. So if you know of places where I can see or eat any of the above, let me know. And if you’ve been to any of the places I mentioned, let me know if they are worthwhile, especially Chillicothe and the Tecumseh drama, because that’s top on my list.