Hiking, biking, and running trails as well as water sports such as kayaking, paddle boarding and boating on Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River all help visitors keep active during their travels in Cleveland, Ohio.
Ranked the 10th most walkable city in the USA, Cleveland’s downtown layout makes it easy for even first-time visitors to walk around the city. Public Square is a great starting point. This recently renovated historic square and pedestrian-friendly city park has activities such as yoga and a splash zone in the summer months and an ice rink in winter. Just a 10-minute drive west of downtown, Edgewater Park in the Cleveland Metroparks Lakefront Reservation offers a running trail along the shoreline as well as swimming, paddle boarding and kayaking.
A fifteen minutes drive east of downtown is Wildwood Park in the Cleveland Metroparks Euclid Creek Reservation, an area where fishing charters on the lake are available. Some of the most popular hiking excursions include picturesque Cleveland Metroparks (known as the Emerald Necklace), an expansive park system that surrounds the city and has over 100 miles of paved trails for walkers, runners and cyclists.
Cycling is also a great way to see the city, with bike tours increasingly popular. The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad’s Bike Aboard! programme allows visitors to bike through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park while enjoying the scenery of the Ohio and Erie Canalway Towpath Trail and then ride the historic railroad back to their starting point. The Towpath Trail along the former Ohio & Erie Canal spans nearly 90 miles from just south of the mouth of Lake Erie through fields, forests and wetlands to Tuscarawas County.
Cleveland offers a variety of beaches along its Lake Erie coast with swimming, sailing, surfing and some of the best walleye and perch fishing in the world, including Euclid Beach and Huntington Beach.
One of the best ways to enjoy the sights of Cleveland is by traveling through its main waterway, the mighty Cuyahoga River, in a kayak or on a jet ski. Zoom south on the Cuyahoga River and zip past downtown’s skyline, new development on the bluffs, industrial brownfields reverting to nature, and a steel mill.
There are also several places on the shore of Lake Erie where you can hire a jet ski, kayak, boats and take part in yoga classes on stand-up paddle boards. For a more leisurely water experience, there are ships, such as the Goodtime 3 or Nautica Queen, that offer cruising or the BrewBoat for a pedal-powered, paddle-wheel, party-boat on the Cuyahoga River.
