The other night when we were at the lake, a friend was telling us about all these places I’ve never heard of in Cleveland. This really surprised me as I’ve lived in Northeast Ohio for almost 10 years and have lived all over Cleveland–the east, west and south.

Also I have friends who like to try new things so we’ve been all over Cleveland, and a fiance who tolerates me dragging him around to new restaurants and arts-related performances, etc., as well as a friend in the tourism business for Cleveland.

I thought I was fairly cutting edge in terms of what to see and do in Cleveland in so much as if I hadn’t done or seen something myself I knew of it or knew someone who had. Not so!

I really started thinking about how much we like to travel and came to the realization we need to make sure that in addition to exploring the nation and the world, we should probably spend some time exploring our own backyard. I love Northeast Ohio, but we may not live here our entire lives and I would hate to have missed the opportunity to see something while I was here.

So the fiance and I are going to start taking some local adventures– around Ohio, Pennsylvania and maybe Michigan. Obviously we’re on a budget right now with the wedding planning underway, so it’s actually perfect timing to do some short road trips with our cameras and just explore.

I would love if we could do at least one a month, and I’m going to try to get everything up on here tagged as ‘local adventures.’

Our first dedicated local adventure was on Cleveland’s East Side. We wrapped things up with a quick hit downtown, but it took a good part of the day just to explore the few neighborhoods we wandered through.

Case Western Reserve

Little Italy

Lakeview Cemetery

Cleveland Waterfront

Our East Side adventures will be continued on another, hopefully cooler, day. I want to do more in the Heights and the fiance has been wanting to try Hot Sauce Williams since it was featured on the Food Network as one of the best eats in the city. We stopped by before heading downtown but they’re currently closed for construction.

It worked out because we parked downtown and decided to grab a late lunch at Noodlecat, which we’ve been wanting to try for a while. It was fantastic–they have an awesome happy hour starting at 3 p.m. so we eat tried a small portion of noodles as well as a couple Japanese steamed buns. We finished it off with a homemade doughnut– delicious!

Downtown Cleveland will definitely be its own day of wandering and we might need more than a day. I really want to do some boat rides on the lake and around all of the bridges in the city–there are different tours you can do and sunset cruises with dinners, etc. The West Side will also need a day or two–there’s just so much to see!

If you haven’t been to Cleveland, or even if you have, go. Go again. There is always something new you haven’t seen or experienced before, from restaurants constantly popping up to concerts and festivals to a developing lakefront and flats to a new casino and aquarium to artsy suburbs to a new Chinatown. It’s absolutely true that Cleveland Rocks!

The next round of Cleveland adventures will resume later in the summer. Next up– Pittsburgh!