Being just a short 2.5 hour drive up I-65 from our hometown of Nashville, Louisville, Kentucky has become one of our favorite southern cities for a quick day trip! There’s so much history, amazing restaurants, cool/quirky neighborhoods, and excellent bourbon… LOTS of excellent bourbon! In this itinerary we lay out the details of our most recent trip and hope that it will encourage you to start planning your next trip to Louisville!
*Covid has changed many businesses hours and procedures, so we HIGHLY recommend calling ahead of time before planning your trip.
If you want a FREE Printable for our Louisville Itinerary scroll to the bottom!
Let’s get to it...
Check out our video experience below!
9:00 am: Coffee/Breakfast
Please & Thank You (where we went - 800 E Market St)
Sunergos Coffee (231 S 5th St)
Quills Coffee (802 E Main St)
Please & Thank You claims to have Kentucky's best chocolate chip cookie. That's a bold statement if you ask me! BUT after trying it... I can see how they could make such a bold claim! And while I haven't had ever chocolate chip cookie in Kentucky, this one definitely checks all the boxes of an excellent chocolate chip cookie... crispy exterior, gooey center, melty chocolate... what more can you ask for? If you're not a chocolate chip cookie fan, another star of the show (and probably my favorite) is the homemade oatmeal cream pie. These things are delicious! The oatmeal cookie is soft and chewy, and the cream is perfectly sweet and creamy... the perfect match to one of their excellent coffee drinks or teas.
10:00 am: Tour the Frazier History Museum (829 W Main St)
I'll be the first to tell you that museums can get boring real fast... especially local/state museums. I typically have about a 1.5 hour attention span before I need a break, but I was pleasantly surprised at how awesome the Frazier History Museum was! Between the Spirit of Kentucky bourbon exhibit and the "Cool Kentucky" exhibit that highlights all things cool about Kentucky, we spent over 2 hours at Frazier and it flew by! We didn't even get to two of the other exhibits! It's really impressive how many pieces are displayed and how well they showcase and curate the pieces. And if you're a fan of bourbon, the Frazier History Museum is the official starting point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, and they offer an amazing FREE Bourbon Trail concierge to help you map out and plan you trip to the trail. The Frazier has so much to offer and you really should check it out for yourself! Special events spaces, a state of the art interactive digital table with all things bourbon, bourbon tastings, gift shop... and the list goes on! Just trust us and carve out some time for the Frazier History Museum on your next visit to Louisville!
12:00 pm: Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory (800 W Main St)
After learning about all things Kentucky, it's time to walk right across the street to learn about all thing Louisville Slugger at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory! Even if you're not a baseball fan you can enjoy this experience. They walk you through the entire history of the company and the process of making a Louisville slugger from the forest to the MLB fields across the country. They even let you hold game bats that were used by some of the most iconic players of all time! Definitely worth the visit!
1:30 pm: Lunch
Game (where we went - 2295 Lexington Rd)
Feast BBQ (909 E Market St #100)
Merle's Whiskey Kitchen (122 W Main St)
Food options are abundant in Louisville, so the task of choosing a place can be overwhelming, but these are a few that came highly recommended to us. We went to Game which is a wild game burger restaurant. They serve everything from a Buttermilk Fried Frog Leg appetizers to Roasted Buffalo Tongue Sliders to an Alpaca Burger dressed with bone marrow aioli served on a brioche bun! And that's just a few of the wild game plates served at Game! So, if you have adventurous taste buds, this is the place for you! And if you don't... they also have the standard Angus Beef burger as well!
3:00 pm: Riverside Park & Big Four Bridge
5:00 pm: Explore Fourth Street Live/Happy Hour
Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant (400 S 4th St)
Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse (404 S 4th St)
Brendon's Catch 23 (505 S 4th St)
6:30pm: Dinner
Brown Hotel Lobby Bar & Grill (where we went - 335 W Broadway)
Mussel & Burger Bar (113 S 7th St)
Hammerheads (921 Swan St)
If you really want to get a taste of Kentucky before ending the day, then look no further than the Brown Hotel Lobby Bar & Grill! This is where the iconic Kentucky dish the Hot Brown was born, and they have a Derby Pie that is second to none. If you're reading this and have no idea what either of these dishes are, let me explain... The Hot Brown is an open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon, tomatoes, cheese, and a delicate Mornay sauce and Derby Pie is a chocolate and walnut tart in a pie shell with a pastry dough crust, and The Brown Hotel serves up some of the best of both of these legendary recipes!
We hope that this itinerary has been helpful and makes your next visit to Louisville that much better! Be sure to check out our "One Day in Louisville" travel vlog for a detailed look at our most recent visit!
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