Kentucky offers many cool places that make people want to visit the state. Like, you’ve got the awesome Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory, Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace National Historic Park, Kentucky Horse Park, Louisville Mega Cavern, Natural Bridge State Resort Park, Lake Cumberland, Diamond Caverns, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, and a bunch of other cool spots to check out. It’s a bummer we didn’t have all the time in the world to see everything, so we picked the ones that got us the most pumped to visit.
Louisville Zoo
The Louisville Zoo was our first stop. We were visiting the first week of April 2023, during their “In Season” for purchasing tickets. The Zoo is a non-profit organization with events offered throughout the year as a family-friendly outing. There are different “zones” (Africa, Australia, Glacier Run, Islands, Americas, and HerpAquarium) throughout the area so you can walk through and visit the animals commonly found in those climates. Their website offers different types of maps you can pull up on your smartphone if you end up losing your physical map they hand out (like we did).
Some of the exhibits allowed visitors to enter and be closer to the animals, like the bird and kangaroo exhibits.
Next Stop: Mammoth Cave National Park
Any chance I get to visit a National Park, I do my absolute best to visit. For Kentucky, this meant getting a Mammoth Passage tour of Mammoth Cave National Park. Before entering the caves, you must do your best to decontaminate your shoes by using the soft bristle brushes offered at the cave entrance to remove any excess dirt or debris before entering. The tour also goes through some pretty tight spots you have to squeeze through, so if you are claustrophobic, I would look into other tours that are offered that would be more fitting for your preference. There are also a consider amount of stairs throughout the tour and it gets incredibly dark in some locations.
The caves are significantly cooler in temperature, so if you are thinking of visiting, plan accordingly. The entire guided tour took just under 3 hours. It was amazing to see the structures of an entire civilization that once called these caves their “home”.
Overall Thoughts
Would I go back to Kentucky? Maybe, there were definitely some locations I would have liked to adventure to. Would I go back in April? No. During this time of year for the area, there are higher chances for tornadoes. The whole week we had the news on and were watching the path of the tornado that was coming dangerously close to where we were staying. Thankfully, the worst that we experiences was torrential downpour from the storm. Something I understand not everyone was lucky enough to avoid as this tornado caused a lot of destruction. This was also my first time experiencing this type of natural disaster and having to prepare.
Thank you for joining me on this adventure. Until next time, Adventure Awaits!
