Top free mobile travel apps for discovering Ohio

By Dominique King

Posted On: Apr 12, 2014

Here’s a list of the best free mobile travel apps I’ve found for getting out on the road and discovering Ohio!

• Ohio Wines-Check out Ohio’s winery scene with the Ohio Wines app. Get directions to individual wineries, preview winery websites, explore wine trails throughout the state, and learn about wine-related events in Ohio.

• Toledo Museum of Art-Find listings of museum events and exhibition details with this easy-to-use app. I like the app’s self-guided tour of the museum’s outdoor Sculpture Garden, complete with related links or short audio/video clips about each piece, and the Ancient World tour that explains how the museum’s early 20th century architecture reflects influences of classic design.

• Cleveland Museum of Art-This version of the museum’s iPad app designed for smart phones allows you to see 12,000+ images from the museum’s collection, locate artwork at the museum, view videos, and check out tours suggested by other visitors. I’ve started bookmarking favorite artists and museum pieces to create my own tour for my next visit to the CMA!

  
  Cleveland Museum of Art

• Columbus Zoo-Explore the zoo with this app, available in mobile phone or iPad versions. The app’s clean and simple interface allowing users to easily access information about the animals, the grounds, events and purchasing tickets for the zoo.

• Akron Zoo-Learn about the zoo’s animals, locate them on a map, and find information like zoo hours and how to register for events. This app will even help you locate your car at the end of the day if you forgot where you parked it!

• Cincinnati Zoo-Purchase tickets, get directions to the zoo and pinpoint your location with an interactive map. One of my favorite fun features of this app was being able to take photos at the zoo and email them as postcards directly from the app.

• Chimani Cuyahoga National Park-This app is one of more than two dozen developed by Chimani for National Parks in the United States and elsewhere. Load this app onto your phone and you won’t even need a phone or Wi-Fi connection to access many features like detailed park maps.

  
  Cuyahoga Valley National Park

• Cedar Point/Kings Island-Check out height requirements for park rides, where to eat, information on live shows and more. Click on the “more” tab at the bottom of each app’s main screen to find a menu of YouTube videos from the park on the Kings Island app and to check out the Web cams stationed throughout the park on the Cedar Point app.

• Cleveland Historical-Put Cleveland history at your fingertips with this mobile app from Cleveland State University. This app brings the city’s history and culture alive through words, pictures and video. Cleveland Historical is the model for several other developing historical apps that cover the Medina, Geauga, and Scioto areas.

• Buckeye Stroll-This Ohio State University Libraries app spotlights more than 60 points of interest on campus, allowing visitors to learn about the school’s history with short stories and some fun then-and-now photos from the library’s archives.

• Remarkable Ohio-The Remarkable Ohio site from the Ohio Historical Society allows you to search the state’s 1300+ historical markers by topic or by county, see photos, and find marker locations by latitude and longitude. Remarkable Ohio’s iPhone app should be up and running soon. Meanwhile, this site is quick and responsive to use on your mobile devices.

• Discover Ohio iPad app-No list of Ohio mobile travel apps would be complete without Discover Ohio’s new free iPad app! The app is an interactive version of the state’s print travel guide that includes additional photos and videos. I found this easy-to- use app a very cool alternative to lugging around a dog-eared paper guide. Click here to download it.

Find mobile apps by searching the App Store on your smart phone. Have you discovered other free mobile travel apps for Ohio that I should check out?