There’s No Place Like Oklahoma City: How a Travel Writer Found an Unexpected Home on the Plains

When I first came to Oklahoma in 2017, I had no idea what to expect.

Having grown up in New Hampshire, the only thing I knew about the Sooner State was its seemingly precarious location in Tornado Alley. My brother, back in New England, had started dating a woman—now his wife—from Oklahoma City, and out of eager curiosity, I politely invited myself along on one of their trips back to her hometown. What I found in 2017 was, indeed, not what I expected at all. Instead, I found a place I could call home. 

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Stereotypes vs. Reality

Perhaps more so than many states, Oklahoma is one of misconceptions and stereotypes. Still today, living in the 20th most populous city in the country, people who haven’t visited Oklahoma assume it’s the rural Wild West, strewn with tumbleweeds and tornadoes.

Yes, both occur here, but there’s so much more to this state than the stuff that comes sweeping down the plains, and that’s particularly true of my adopted home city of Oklahoma City. 

Experiencing Oklahoma City as a Tourist: Things to Do and Places to See

On that first visit in 2017, we did it all. We went to a Thunder game, and to The Jones Assembly for after-dinner drinks. We went to brunch at Cafe Kacao, and attended the Festival of the Arts. We explored the Plaza Walls, and shared garlic knots and pizza at Empire Slice House in the Plaza District. We even made it out to Okarche to feast on fried chicken at Eischen’s, the oldest bar in the state.

As we criss-crossed the vast city, my image of it came into clearer focus. Oklahoma City has its fair share of steakhouses and cowboy lore, but what surprised me—in addition to just how metropolitan it really is—is the sense of community here. It’s a big city that, in many ways, acts like a quaint town, and welcomes outsiders with open arms. 

Hidden Gems in Oklahoma City

As an outsider, I felt that embrace in ways that I had never connected with in New England or Chicago. And it’s precisely what kept drawing me back for more. When I left Chicago in my RV in 2018, my first stop was Oklahoma City, so I could scratch that nostalgic itch, and eat chicken-fried steak at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse, the oldest restaurant in the state, where John Wayne once drank tequila.

Over those subsequent two years in my RV, Oklahoma City was a recurring stopover, thanks in part to its convenient location at the crossroads of major highways, but mostly because I simply wanted to be here, and was always willing to make the detour. Over time, I developed a familiarity with the street names and neighborhoods; I found my favorite restaurants and cafes, savoring griddled burgers on the sidewalk patio at Bar Arbolada, and chewy salted chocolate chip cookies at Elemental Coffee. I started going on walks around Lake Hefner, which, with its convincingly New England-inspired lighthouse, was a reminder of home, in what was starting to feel like my new home. 

Happily Settled (Not Settling) in Oklahoma City

In 2020, while everyone was buying RVs during the pandemic, I was ready to park mine. After two and a half years of RV living, I was ready to settle again, but where? I knew I didn’t want to go back to Chicago, or to any comparably huge, expensive city. I wanted to be in a city, but one that was more comfortable and more affordable, with better traffic and milder winters. Oklahoma City, of all the places I traveled to, fit like the perfect cowboy boot I never knew I needed. 

I decided to stay here on a trial basis, in an RV park, to get a real feel for what life would look like. And even despite a global pandemic, the warmth of this community was palpable through the socially distant face masks. When I wasn’t walking around Lake Hefner, or along the Oklahoma River, I would read Agatha Christie books on the sprawling patio at Angry Scotsman Brewery, and overload on chicken tenders at the delightfully vintage Winchester Drive-In. I remember sitting on the porch at Bradford House, a boutique hotel that opened the same month I moved to town, and sipping their signature Gin & Jam cocktail, marveling at the beauty of that place, and the mere fact that it even exists here. A few months later, I bought a house. 

Pride of Place: Why Oklahoma City Feels Like Home

I didn’t settle in Oklahoma City because of a Gin & Jam cocktail, or a lighthouse, or an old-school steakhouse that feels like a cozy time warp. These are all elements of a city I love, but what compelled me to move here was the community. People in Oklahoma City are a friendly bunch, but beyond the “hi y’alls” and the genteel pleasantries, they’re a diverse, resilient, open-minded community that works together for the greater good. It’s a sentiment I literally wept over when I first visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, and one I continue to weep for on each and every visit. That communal resilience is reflected, quite literally, in the reflecting pool on the memorial grounds, as it is throughout the city’s vibrant, inclusive districts — from the spunky vintage shops in the Plaza District, and the adobe-clad galleries in the Paseo Arts District, to the LGBTQ+-owned businesses and bars on 39th Street. 

As a gay man, I’ve always felt warmly embraced in Oklahoma City, and not just in the gays bars, or at one of the city’s several Pride festivals. And I think that’s what I love most about it here. I never want to live in an echo chamber, nor do I want to live someplace where I feel unsafe. Oklahoma City feels like the perfect middle ground — a vast melting pot of ideas, opinions, and backgrounds, from all walks of life, and both sides of the aisle. And yet, there’s harmony in that. People here, no matter how different, are embracing of those differences, and don’t let them define us. We can co-exist, and show up for our neighbors, in a way that I wish the rest of the country would follow. Is it perfect? Certainly not, but no place is, and living in a place like this — one that’s surprisingly diverse and metropolitan, affordable, and collectively resilient — provides me the unique opportunity to be a part of organic, meaningful growth.  

In Oklahoma City, I don’t have to live in an echo chamber, and I don’t need to stick to gay bars or arts districts. I can be fully myself, be it in the 39th Street gayborhood or over a platter of fried chicken amidst the tumbleweeds of Okarche. I can walk into Cattlemen’s Steakhouse, in Stockyards City, proudly hand-in-hand with my husband, and feel right at home.