The Henry Doorly Zoo is actually pretty good and the only real attraction. Don't skip it when you are here. The museums are nice. It's mostly generic city stuff. Best restaurant imo is Spezia. Benson area has all the meme hipster arcade, microbrewery stuff. The Old Market is where all the tourist shops are. There's a cool massive old book store there called Jackson Street Booksellers that I really enjoy. South 24th St for Mexican/Hispanic food and shops. There's usually some sort of sporting event or festival going on at any given weekend. St Cecilia's RC Cathedral is pretty and you can go in any time during the day.
If you have two days to spare, definitely drive out west to Toadstool and Chadron state parks and go camping. That's the best area of the state. It's like the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota but with waaaaay less people. Or at least go out to somewhere like Burwell out in the sandhills and rent an innertube or kayak to float down the Calamus river.
You can check the Nebraska Passport website for "hidden gem" type things that may be of interest to you around the state.
If you can't drive too far, visit the Loess Hills in Iowa. Hitchcock nature center is like 20 minutes outside of Omaha and has some nice trails.
Any specific things you are interested in?
It's pretty much the same as Omaha except college town edition. Restaurants, sports games, museums, bars. The state capitol is there which I guess is mildly interesting? Also the quilt museum was surprisingly a good way to spend an hour, it isnt all old lady stuff there are actually some pretty neat works of art there. Museum of American Speed is cool too.
>what is there to do here?
Eat, Drink and Fuck. That being said, there's a lot of great stops for food and some bars are excessively good. It's really more of a small town than a city, you'll be pressed to see a busy street at any time of day. Some places to check out, besides the zoo, gardens and museums would be bars and restaurants.
Bars: Berry & Rye, Wicked Rabbit, Mercury, Green Room, Fizzy's, Nite Owl, and Laka Lono's for the best cocktail bars in town. T Henerys is a solid dive with beer pong, darts, pool and ping pong, Rose and Crown is a good local dive but can get sketchy, nice back patio though. Sonny's is a good spot for drinking in aksarben, nice vibes all around if its warm out.
Food: V Mertz, Le Boullion, La Buvette, Block 16, 801 Chophouse (for a proper steak), Mula, Ika San has great ramen and a decent sake selection, Shuck's Oyster Bar, Saffron, Koji, Dirty Birds, Crescent Moon (beer hall) is supposed to be the home of the original Reuben, Orsi's for the best pizza in town.
You can try to catch a band at Slowdown or Waiting Room Lounge, The Down Under Lounge may have some events so check their fb page. There's some architecture tourism in the Joslyn Castle and a few other maintained old homes.There's the pedestrian bridge, I guess and a stop to the casinos in Council Bluffs.
It's a good way to spend a day but it's more of the same. Food, bars, college kids to smash. The draw to Omaha is that you can work for decent wages while saving money because of the lower cost of living. It's got no other draws besides economics and good food.
You can have an unironically great time if you meet cool regulars at bars. I know an older woman named Karen who's banned from Havana Garage (great whiskey bar, shit cigar lounge) for brandishing a firearm while drunk, offered to suck my dick because she's been femcel after her 25+ year marriage ended and gave me free edibles she got in Colorado. I've fucked some thots that I've picked up over at Beer Can Alley or the 415. Aksarben is the NewHipResidentialAreaTM and it's bordered by a women's college and UNO so you can find some girls desperate for a lay there. I've partied with bartenders afterhours, met tons of people and gotten invited to random events... It's a real fun time if you're capable of being very social.
Realistically, nightlife is: >Old Market >Benson >Blackstone/Midtown >Aksarben >13th street by little bohemia for Fizzy's, Tiny House Bar and Beercade 2.
If you decide to get shitfaced drunk one night at old market (preferably by going to the good cocktail bars I listed), be sure to stop at Zaytuna (food truck on Howard and 13th) and get a gyro or shawarma since they're open until 2:30 AM, the gyro truck boys are total bros. Oh and whatever the fuck you do, stay away from Parliament Pub, there's always police being called either for drunkards or fights/stabbings/shooting.
Things to Do >Henry Doorly Zoo >SAC Museum >Omaha Union Station museum is okay >Old Market is okay, but lots of gay hipster millennial stores.
Food is pretty good here tho.
Visiting Omaha in a month and this has been a helpful thread. Two quick questions. How good is the Iowa side in Omaha like Lake Manawa State Park and Carter Lake as far as visiting go? Is it worth the visit? Obviously I'll do the Pedestrian bridge but I'm curious if there's anything worthwhile to see in Iowa while I'm up there.
>how good is the iowa side of things?
depends, how much do you love Hooters and Gambling? >carter lake
basic park, lakefront homes with a small boat out back, maybe get a kayak or on a boat? really not much to see/do, you'll get some views of it as you leave the airport >lake manawa park
literally a playground and a lake, chill spot to go read a book or do yoga but really it's not impressive, if you can rent a kayak or something then might be fun to go for it but again, not super impressive
My advice? Leave as soon as possible. I lived in Omaha for a year and it was the most miserable year of my entire life. Stay out of North and South Omaha if you value your life.
Is Lincoln worth visiting? It's 1 hour away
The Henry Doorly Zoo is actually pretty good and the only real attraction. Don't skip it when you are here. The museums are nice. It's mostly generic city stuff. Best restaurant imo is Spezia. Benson area has all the meme hipster arcade, microbrewery stuff. The Old Market is where all the tourist shops are. There's a cool massive old book store there called Jackson Street Booksellers that I really enjoy. South 24th St for Mexican/Hispanic food and shops. There's usually some sort of sporting event or festival going on at any given weekend. St Cecilia's RC Cathedral is pretty and you can go in any time during the day.
If you have two days to spare, definitely drive out west to Toadstool and Chadron state parks and go camping. That's the best area of the state. It's like the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota but with waaaaay less people. Or at least go out to somewhere like Burwell out in the sandhills and rent an innertube or kayak to float down the Calamus river.
You can check the Nebraska Passport website for "hidden gem" type things that may be of interest to you around the state.
If you can't drive too far, visit the Loess Hills in Iowa. Hitchcock nature center is like 20 minutes outside of Omaha and has some nice trails.
Any specific things you are interested in?
It's pretty much the same as Omaha except college town edition. Restaurants, sports games, museums, bars. The state capitol is there which I guess is mildly interesting? Also the quilt museum was surprisingly a good way to spend an hour, it isnt all old lady stuff there are actually some pretty neat works of art there. Museum of American Speed is cool too.
Quality post. Is Conor Oberst from there? He's probably the biggest thing ever from NE right?
>what is there to do here?
Eat, Drink and Fuck. That being said, there's a lot of great stops for food and some bars are excessively good. It's really more of a small town than a city, you'll be pressed to see a busy street at any time of day. Some places to check out, besides the zoo, gardens and museums would be bars and restaurants.
Bars: Berry & Rye, Wicked Rabbit, Mercury, Green Room, Fizzy's, Nite Owl, and Laka Lono's for the best cocktail bars in town. T Henerys is a solid dive with beer pong, darts, pool and ping pong, Rose and Crown is a good local dive but can get sketchy, nice back patio though. Sonny's is a good spot for drinking in aksarben, nice vibes all around if its warm out.
Food: V Mertz, Le Boullion, La Buvette, Block 16, 801 Chophouse (for a proper steak), Mula, Ika San has great ramen and a decent sake selection, Shuck's Oyster Bar, Saffron, Koji, Dirty Birds, Crescent Moon (beer hall) is supposed to be the home of the original Reuben, Orsi's for the best pizza in town.
You can try to catch a band at Slowdown or Waiting Room Lounge, The Down Under Lounge may have some events so check their fb page. There's some architecture tourism in the Joslyn Castle and a few other maintained old homes.There's the pedestrian bridge, I guess and a stop to the casinos in Council Bluffs.
It's a good way to spend a day but it's more of the same. Food, bars, college kids to smash. The draw to Omaha is that you can work for decent wages while saving money because of the lower cost of living. It's got no other draws besides economics and good food.
This almost makes me want to visit. lol
You can have an unironically great time if you meet cool regulars at bars. I know an older woman named Karen who's banned from Havana Garage (great whiskey bar, shit cigar lounge) for brandishing a firearm while drunk, offered to suck my dick because she's been femcel after her 25+ year marriage ended and gave me free edibles she got in Colorado. I've fucked some thots that I've picked up over at Beer Can Alley or the 415. Aksarben is the NewHipResidentialAreaTM and it's bordered by a women's college and UNO so you can find some girls desperate for a lay there. I've partied with bartenders afterhours, met tons of people and gotten invited to random events... It's a real fun time if you're capable of being very social.
Realistically, nightlife is:
>Old Market
>Benson
>Blackstone/Midtown
>Aksarben
>13th street by little bohemia for Fizzy's, Tiny House Bar and Beercade 2.
If you decide to get shitfaced drunk one night at old market (preferably by going to the good cocktail bars I listed), be sure to stop at Zaytuna (food truck on Howard and 13th) and get a gyro or shawarma since they're open until 2:30 AM, the gyro truck boys are total bros. Oh and whatever the fuck you do, stay away from Parliament Pub, there's always police being called either for drunkards or fights/stabbings/shooting.
The zoo is a good way to kill an afternoon but it gets busy as shit. Last time we went we had to go back to our hotel and call an uber to drop us off.
There's a lot of ok bars in the Old Market. They had a big ass farmers market my wife and I went to one morning.
Council Bluffs has some casinos if you like to gamble.
We went into this old toy story and a horror movie themed restaurant in downtown omaha that were enjoyable for the muh nostalgia factor.
Yoshi-Ya Ramen is good there. It's a very useless boring town. I was there for half a day and hated it.
I enjoyed it for a weekend, but I don't know if I'd go much longer than that. But it's only 3 hours from me.
yoshi ya is really not that good. but theres a surprising number of ramen restaurants in omaha.
If you're into military aviation, particularly bombers, the Strategic Air Museum is not far from town.
if you want a real Omaha experience, go to the Alpine Inn.
Why the fuck would you come here?
Things to Do
>Henry Doorly Zoo
>SAC Museum
>Omaha Union Station museum is okay
>Old Market is okay, but lots of gay hipster millennial stores.
Food is pretty good here tho.
visit the botanical garden
there is also a very large train near the botanical garden
eat a few runza's and shit through a screen door
Visiting Omaha in a month and this has been a helpful thread. Two quick questions. How good is the Iowa side in Omaha like Lake Manawa State Park and Carter Lake as far as visiting go? Is it worth the visit? Obviously I'll do the Pedestrian bridge but I'm curious if there's anything worthwhile to see in Iowa while I'm up there.
>how good is the iowa side of things?
depends, how much do you love Hooters and Gambling?
>carter lake
basic park, lakefront homes with a small boat out back, maybe get a kayak or on a boat? really not much to see/do, you'll get some views of it as you leave the airport
>lake manawa park
literally a playground and a lake, chill spot to go read a book or do yoga but really it's not impressive, if you can rent a kayak or something then might be fun to go for it but again, not super impressive
My advice? Leave as soon as possible. I lived in Omaha for a year and it was the most miserable year of my entire life. Stay out of North and South Omaha if you value your life.