"New to the City? Need a tour guide for... " a Columbus Travel Page by wheretonow

Columbus, Ohio has recently been added as a synonym for the word 'transient'. You may just be coming through for the weekend, but chances are, the variety will be enough to interest you when your next job change occurs. The comfort of the small town with choices pulls international characters in for just long enough to make some great connections, have some packed summer parties, and get em tired enough to move on. I don't run into too many 20 somethings or 30 somethings that have been here more than 5 years unless they were doing college and continuing a local internship afterwards or a Masters program.

The city's broken down into a few areas, of which you can do a quick recon of easily, depending on your version of prime time. I'd break it down to the following: Dublin, Grandview, Campus, German Village or the Short North. Aside from that, you've bought tickets to a destination event or are dining with friends that live somewhere else. Each of these areas have enough flavor to give a few moment's of consideration, but if you're going for crab-cakes... I really couldn't honestly send you to any place that's still in existance. Good lump crab shouldn't be your goal here in cow town anyway, you should lean towards Easton's selection like Bon Vie, Brio or Smith & Wolensky's. If you're 20 something, you probably would rather catch dinner in the Short North at Rigsby's for upscale dining or grab some micro brews at Barley's and drink your dinner. Don't rule out the coolest ambience for dinner at The Elevator though. No promotion here, just straight up, honest, boiled down to the best overall experiences that are easy to find from anyone on the street. Oh, and people on the street WILL talk to you ... unless they're a transient... then you might catch that anomaly.

If you want to 'drink' in a movie, ask around for the Nationwide Drexel where you can take drinks and interesting food into a movie.

Bands play at Little Bros, Skully's (punk rock/80's and other theme nights) or the bigger Venue's like OSU's High Street music venue just south of 15th a few blocks. PromoWest has some headliner's but it's cold and calculated.. .not like campus where you can actually feel like you're really at a show and not worry about stupid drama from the help.

If you want to get down, don't look for too much from these DJ's, due the the lack of demand for good music, they're forced to play a lot of cheese around here. Tuesday at Spice might have a little drum n' bass, but I've never gone, so you're on your own. Also, a little secret is that Tuesday night is 'locals' night there. If you buddy up with a local at the bar they may let you in on 1/2 priced items they get with their card. Martini's, on High St. has a club underneath it called Carlisle Club, who gets the 'pretty' crowd. That hits on Fri/Sat around 10 or 11. Well, the rest of it is in the area, but for me personally, I'd go to 501 Front St. to hear the great selection of Live Funk and/or Jazz they get in there on the weekends. That's usually where I'll start off. You'll meet some wanderers and end up walking to any of the 20 bars in the area, but they get the core group of characters if you're looking for quality.

Good luck kids. Peeeeeace.

For a visually stunning little photo opp with your baby, take her to the Franklin Park Conservatory (head east from the city on Broad, on right) Here are some stereoscopic shots I took there. You can do the same, just take a right eye photo and a left eye photo!... Get the prints back, lay them on the table, cross your eyes til they overlap, and overlap the pics!