Newark & Granville — Ancient Hopewell Earthworks & a Welsh College Town

Forty minutes east of Columbus lie some of the most astonishing works of the ancient Americas: the Newark Earthworks, a monumental complex of geometric mounds built by the Hopewell culture two thousand years ago and now inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This one-day loop walks the Great Circle and the Octagon — vast earthen enclosures engineered to track the 18.6-year cycle of the moon with startling precision — then turns to the town's later heritage at the National Heisey Glass Museum, home to the elegant pressed and blown glass that made Newark a household name. The day closes in Granville, a Welsh-founded college town whose brick-and-elm main street, laid out to echo New England, is one of the prettiest in Ohio. Ancient astronomy, American glass, and a village that feels borrowed from Massachusetts — all within an easy round trip.