The Family Events Everybody in Columbus Talks About

Ask any Columbus parent what makes this city feel like home, and you’ll get the same handful of answers every time. These are the events my own family plans our calendar around, the ones the kids start asking about weeks ahead.

Nothing kicks off summer quite like Red, White & BOOM! on the riverfront downtown. More than 400,000 of us pack in for the parade and the fireworks that light up over COSI, and it’s still the best free show in Central Ohio. A few days earlier, the Short North gets delightfully weird for the Doo Dah Parade, where liberty, lunacy, and homemade costumes spill into a Goodale Park afterparty the whole family can wander through.

When the weather cools, the magic moves to the animals. Wildlights at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium turns the whole park into millions of twinkling LED lights, animated to music, and it’s included right with your regular admission. Pair it with a stroll through Conservatory Aglow at Franklin Park Conservatory, gingerbread house and all, and you’ve got a holiday tradition that sticks.

Rainy Day and Weekend Standbys

Some favorites aren’t once-a-year at all, they’re the places we return to again and again:

• COSI, voted the nation’s best science museum more than once, and worth every hands-on hour
• The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in any season, not just at holiday time
• Franklin Park Conservatory for slowing down among the blooms and butterflies