Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Visited on July 11, 2026
To not bury the lead, this is my least favorite park. At the time of writing this, I've only made it to ~25% of them, and yet I feel fully confident saying this is the worst one of all.
This park isn't without charm, but in my mind, this really ranks more as a great state park. If this was in my backyard, I'd really appreciate it, but it didn't feel like it made it to the level of 'national treasure' like other parks feel like.
Quite the Drive
We began our trip from the Pittsburgh airport. I have a yearly company meeting, and this year we were in Pittsburgh, so this national park visit was a side trip on the company trip.
We rented a car in Pittsburgh, if you're going solely for the park, I'd recommend flying to Cleavland and saving yourself lots of time in the car. We'd never seen Ohio before though, and the drive was pretty for lots of the way so I don't regret it.
Visitor Center
We started as per usual at the visitor center. My understanding is there are multiple in the park, but we visited the Boston Mill center.
There were some pretty views of the river, and we set off from here on a walk to the Brandywine Falls trail on the recomendation from a voulenteer ranger.
Brandywine Falls
This was going to be a 5 mile round trip hike, and at the time there was a heat advisory and we did not have nearly enough water. This trail involved brushing through lots of tall grass, and we were a bit worried about ticks so we turned around ~1 mile into the hike.
There's a great little store there near the visitor center, so we filled up on water + other drinks and ended up driving to the falls instead. (Note: there were signs there saying the lot is full, but we went in anyways and got a spot immediately)
I'd recommend skipping the hike. It feels a lot more like walking along a road, and doesn't have much of a payoff since you can just drive there anyways.
Ledges Trail
Next up, we drove to the ledges trail. This was probably our favorite thing in the park.
The ledges deep into the ground on the east side of the loop were really striking. It was cool that you can walk around the rim at the top, and then descend into them later.
We also encountered a rat snake on the trail! Yikes!
We did only do half of it because it was so hot. We didn't quite feel the need to go to the bottom side of the ledge on the west half of the loop. We did make it up to the ledge overlook though.
One of the most welcome stops on the hike was the bat cave enterance. It's blocked off to help prevent the spread of a disease to the bats, but right next to the enterance is a gap in the rocks that lets out super cold air. It feels like stepping into a fridge, which was great during the heat advisory.
Here was the view from the lookout, it wasn't anything crazy.
Historic Bridge
We were running out of time, so we finished off our visit at one of the historic covered bridges. It only took a few minutes to walk to this from the parking lot.
We learned these were covered because it helps keep the wood flooring from rotting. It was pretty cute!
Final Thoughts
All in all we spent maybe 5 hours at the park before we had had enough.
I'm glad we visited this park, it was cute, and gave me a better feel for what Ohio is like on the drive to and from. But, it really doesn't quite feel awe inspiring like others do. It'd be hard to recommend a dedicated trip here from far away without some other excuse to be in the area.
National Parks Log
- ✓Hot Springs National Park(Arkansas)Rank #15
- ✓Gateway Arch National Park(Missouri)Rank #16
- ✓Cuyahoga Valley National Park(Ohio)You are hereRank #18
Remaining Bucket List
- ○Badlands National Park(South Dakota)
- ○Great Smoky Mountains National Park(Tennessee/North Carolina)
- ○Indiana Dunes National Park(Indiana)
- ○Isle Royale National Park(Michigan)
- ○Mammoth Cave National Park(Kentucky)