[2024] Is Cleveland Worth Visiting? An Honest Michigander Answers...

The cool stuff you'll find in downtown

The first thing I do to assess whether a city is worth visiting or not is to saunter through its most visited area, which in many cities, is its downtown.

The things I value the most in a city are: interesting & memorable public art sculptures, colorful murals & street art, cool skyscrapers, engaging museums, lots of people out and about, and a variety of dining options.

Downtown Cleveland has most of the above.

Pictured above is the GE Chandelier. It is the largest (maybe largest in the world?) outdoor chandelier, hanging over 44 feet over the street in Playhouse Square. The chandelier features 4,200 crystal pendants.

Another cool thing about Playhouse Square: it is the second largest performing arts district in the country! I couldn't help but think parts of Playhouse Square looked like the Broadway district in New York City, which happens to be the only performing arts district larger than Playhouse Square.

Playhouse Square is a really cool area in downtown!

Walk a little further down Playhouse Square and you'll find Public Square. In the center of Public Square is its Soldiers and Sailors Monument. You can walk up on it and have someone take a great picture of you from the ground.

Below is a picture of me on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument back in July 2021, when I had just started my journey to visit all the states-- and Ohio was the first state I went to!

Another can't-miss component of Public Square is the Terminal Tower. Fun trivia about Terminal Tower: until 1964, Terminal Tower was the second tallest building in the world. Today, it remains the second tallest building in Ohio, standing at 709 feet tall!

What's the first tallest building in Ohio? I'll get to that in a moment! First, admire this picture of Terminal Tower!

Question: what's the first tallest skyscraper in Ohio?

Answer: The Key Tower, which is conveniently located very close to Public Square! The Key Tower stands at an impressive 948 feet with the spire included!

Moving on to public art!

My favorite statue in downtown Cleveland is this beaut pictured below. In the backgroud, you'll see the previously mentioned Key Tower. This art piece is entitled 'Fountain of Eternal Life'.

Something fun and quirky you'll find in downtown Cleveland is... the world's largest rubber stamp!

Seriously! It is located near the Cleveland Public Library.

These last decorations you'll see in downtown on E 9th Street are colored guitar amplifiers. These amplifiers, of course, allude to perhaps Cleveland's most popular attraction: the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The amps come in multiple colors. Here's two orange amps by a pretty cool mural!

The amps are a segue into the next big reason why Cleveland is worth visiting in 2024: its museums!

The four museums in Cleveland you should check out!

Cleveland's most popular attraction and museum is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It is the first of four museums I'll elaborate on in this section.

Displayed outside the entrance seen from E 9th Street are the giant letters 'LONG LIVE ROCK', which pays tribute to some of the lyrics from the chorus of the Rainbow song 'Long Live Rock n Roll'.

The museum's purpose is to celebrate the music of artists whose songs have had the greatest impact on the music industry and popular culture.

My all-time favorite band, Nirvana, is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It was a treat to see some of Kurt Cobain's smashed guitars and lyric sheets in the museum.

Other legendary rock acts that have been inducted into the hall of fame include The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Metallica, and Led Zeppelin.

Albeit the museum being named the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the museum has inducted several non-rock artists, such as Notorious BIG, Eminem, Whitney Houston, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash, Depeche Mode, and The Bee Gees.

So even if rock music isn't your preferred genre, there is a good chance you'll see exhibits devoted to artists outside rock.

The museum is self-guided and for an adult tickets costs $35.

The second museum you should definitely check is my personal favorite: the Cleveland Museum of Art!

The Cleveland Museum of Art will always hold a special place in my memory as it was the art museum which inspired me to visit other art museums throughout my travels!

Admission to this incredible museum: free!

The Cleveland Art Museum features over 60,000+ pieces of art, spanning multiple millenia and from nearly every continent on the globe.

This art museum is my third favorite art museum in the country thus far, only trailing behind The MET in New York City and the Detroit Institute of Art.

Last, the Cleveland Museum of Art happens to share the same campus as the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Both place are worth checking out too!

Side note: while the Cleveland Botanical Gardens are open during the winter, it's far more worth it to visit in the late spring through early autumn.

The third of the four museums you should visit is the house that was used to film the classic 1983 film A Christmas Story.

Unlike the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Museum of Art, you can't freely enter the A Christmas Story house. You have to pay for a guided tour-- although there are points throughout the tour where you can explore and take your own pictures.

What's funny is that I personally have never seen A Christmas Story the entire way through! I've just seen clips of the movie throughout the years. Still, I found the museum to be entertaining and knew enough of the movie to enjoy it!

What's really cool is that you can touch much of the actual furniture that was actually featured in the film! You can even hold the actual B.B gun that Peter Billingsley, the actor who played Ralphie, held in the movie too!

The interior of the house has been faithfully reconstructed and preserved to appear just as it did in the film! You learn in the tour that most of the scenes in the film were, indeed, shot inside this very Cleveland home (although some scenes were filmed in a studio in Toronto).

Inside the gift shop, you'll find lots of leg lamps! I thought that was pretty funny.

Now we come to the fourth and final museum on this list: the Museum of Illusions!

Unlike the previous three mentioned museums, the Museum of Illusions is not strictly a Cleveland attraction. The Museum of Illusions is the world's largest privately owned museum chain and they have locations in several other US cities such as Minneapolis and New York.

The Cleveland location of the Museum of Illusions opened on May 31, 2024.

As the museum's name suggests, guests get to experience a wide range of optical illusions, from interesting paintings on the wall challenging your perception to several of the exhibits featuring clever use of mirrors.

I have an entire article devoted to reviewing the Museum of Illusions in Cleveland if you want further information!

A cool fast food restaurant exclusive to Ohio to visit

When I first visited Ohio as part of my 50 states journey in summer 2021, I was fortunate to have a friend accompany me who was born and raised near Cleveland. He told my other friend and I we should check out Swensons-- a burger fast food joint only found in Ohio.

The ordering experience at Swensons is similar to what you have encountered in a Chick-Fil-A drive-thru. At Swensons, you park in the parking lot, and a friendly & energetic employee comes out to your car and takes your order.

Whenever I've dined at Swensons, I've always ordered their sloppy joes and their signature Galley Boy! The Galley Boy is a double patty cheeseburger with a tangy tartar sauce on the top bun and a zesty barbeque sauce on the bottom bun.

I had a Swensons employee tell me he's had travelers from all over the country come to Cleveland just to eat at the restaurant! I can see why. The food is quite good and the friendliness of the staff adds a lot to the experience.

As much as I like Swensons, I hope they don't expand to other states. I feel the restaurant would lose a little of its charm (maybe even decline in quality) if they expanded beyond Ohio!

Conclusion

See, I'm a Michigander and didn't speak one ill word about Cleveland nor the state of Ohio thus far!

Along with Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee, Cleveland is a midwestern city with plenty of memorable attractions to keep a traveler entertained for a weekend.

Cleveland is a city I'll visit again in 2024-- in particular, the Cleveland Art Museum! Hopefully, on my next trip, I'll get some more street art pictures!

Have I persuaded you to visit Cleveland for at least a day this year? Feel free to let me know if I have!


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