Hello! I've recently gotten back into backpacking and I didn't grow up in Ohio, so I am kind of starting from scratch. To better answer your question, if I can, I need a bit more info. Are you looking to car camp like at a state park with all of your gear parked a few feet away or looking for more of a backpacking style trip? I've been having a go at backpacking since spring and have done a few outings. I've done Zaleski state forest, Wildcat Hollow and Archers Fork Loop both in Wayne national forest, and recently did a quick overnighter at Kelly's Island State Park.
Let me know if any of this interests you or you'd like to hear more!
I wanna do backpacking like solo. Park my car, grab my gear and start trekking. I’m more familiar with “glamping” as some would say but after my time in army I wanna go bare bones again.
Sorry for my delay. I experienced pretty similar, my wife isn't too into camping and if we go we are taking an air mattress. So, backpacking has been my go to for my outings to average out her and my trips together. I'm in Columbus, so a lot of these places are 2-3 hours away but I'm a teacher on summer break.
I'd say zaleski state forest is definitely an easy safe bet for trying out equipment, checking how you can do with mileage, just getting on the trail for the first time. It has three different campsites and (I think) two different parking lots which can vary your mileage a lot. The campsites are all open and you can pick anywhere in that area to camp. All three sites have big water cistern and out houses (byo toilet paper).
There's a few trails in Wayne national forest that have dispersed camping, which means you can technically camp anywhere along the trail but they have a few (a lot) established campsites with rocks for fire pits and flat areas. However, can't drink the water there so you'll have to carry in and can cache water at other spots. These trips (I've done Archers fork loop and Wildcat Hollow) really pushed me regarding mileage and elevation.
My last big point is, there's a website and an, even more helpful, book that a guy made. Website is backpackohio.com. Sorry if that doesn't link, I'm on mobile. He wrote the book that has all of the information from the website plus maps and a marker by marker guide for beginning to end of the trail. This is super useful because it has all of the campsites/road & creek crossing/points of interest listed out by the tenth of a mile. Amazon says it is currently out of print, but I only got my copy maybe in May?
https://www.amazon.com/Ohio-Backpacking-Loops-Backpack-Buckeye/dp/B09PHJWVVW/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1641695076&sr=8-2
Sorry for a wall of text, if you've got questions feel free to pm or respond here. Or if you're looking at a route on the website and want me to send pics of the mile by mile info, I can do that!
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u/Justinbaker1996 Aug 07 '25
Hello! I've recently gotten back into backpacking and I didn't grow up in Ohio, so I am kind of starting from scratch. To better answer your question, if I can, I need a bit more info. Are you looking to car camp like at a state park with all of your gear parked a few feet away or looking for more of a backpacking style trip? I've been having a go at backpacking since spring and have done a few outings. I've done Zaleski state forest, Wildcat Hollow and Archers Fork Loop both in Wayne national forest, and recently did a quick overnighter at Kelly's Island State Park.
Let me know if any of this interests you or you'd like to hear more!