One Day in Oklahoma City (OKC)
The Verdict: We really liked OKC. It was clean, not overly crowded, vegetarian-friendly, and had a few cute neighborhoods. It was also affordable and seemed like a pretty good place to live longer-term (well, aside from the low COVID vaccination rates...). What to do:
(1) Downtown Parks (free): Check out the Myriad Botanical Garden and Scissortail Park. Both are very pretty and have good walking/running paths. They are only about a block apart. We can't think of many downtown areas that are as nice as this one! Street parking is ample and costs $2/hr (it's free after 5 or 6p on weekdays).
(2) The Paseo: This is a hip shopping and food area. We tried OSO Paseo (Tex Mex) for dinner; the food was pretty good and the drinks were delicious (we recommend the mai tai)! Their outdoor patio is extra cute. Parking is free but can be hard to find, at least on a Thursday evening.
(3) Plaza District: This cute arts district has wonderful street art (Google Map to Plaza Walls to find the alley of murals), yoga, improv, thrift stores, cute eateries, and more. Parking is free.
(4) State Capitol: The Oklahoma State Capitol really stuck out to us for how fancy and ornate it is on the inside. We liked walking up to the fourth floor to look at the gorgeous dome and colorful murals of Native Americans. We liked how rooted the art and the (few) educational displays were in the state's history. We thought they could have done more in the way of educational information (the Texas State Capitol really stuck out for its excellent audio information and free tours; we weren't sure if the OKC building had free tours and we didn't see any information posted about them).
^ Note the pink dotted box at the bottom: the Capitol dome lists its sponsors. We’ve never seen a government that was so honest about being in the pocket of business (especially such conservative businesses as Hobby Lobby)!
Where to stay:
Staying near the Plaza District or The Paseo is probably really nice. There is a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel in that area that looks great, but was fully booked the day we visited. We stayed at The Sheraton Downtown and it was fine; we liked the proximity to the downtown gardens.
