New Guide: Holiday Lights and Ice Skating Around Columbus
Wildlights, Wanderlights, suburban tree lightings and every public rink, sorted by date with organizer-posted hours and prices. Status: Live on site.
The season of lights starts in two weeks, and we built a planner for it. Our new winter lights and skating guide went live on Thursday, October 29, at more than 2,600 words, with every date, hour and price taken from the organizer's own page.
It opens with a running calendar so you can plan by weekend. Easton's Grand Illumination kicks things off on Friday, November 13. A week later, on November 20, the zoo's Wildlights season begins, and Downtown's free Wanderlights walk starts the same night. Tree lightings follow in Gahanna, Worthington, Grandview Heights, Dublin, Westerville, Grove City and Hilliard into early December, and Lancaster's Winterlights at Alley Park runs nightly from December 10 to 13.
The two headline shows get the most room. For Wildlights, the guide covers zoo hours, what admission includes and the three new displays. For Wanderlights, it maps the three Downtown stops from Columbus Commons to the Scioto Mile Fountain, explains the six Wander Nights in December and flags that the Commons garage charges $10 on those evenings.
A rink section compares the outdoor sheets in Dublin and New Albany with the indoor public sessions, and a hot chocolate section points to our new cocoa ranking. For a skating-only list, see Best Ice Skating Rinks, and our Downtown page has dinner near Wanderlights.
