The Official Kentucky Visitor's Guide - The Official Kentucky Visitor's Guide 2025

Bluegrass, Blues & BBQ

2024-12-16 11:09:59

ELLIS PARK RACING & GAMING, HENDERSON

A historic home hidden in a garden. Rare early-American motorcycles. An homage to some of the world’s best-known musicians. An army base beautified with murals — so many secrets and surprises tucked all over this region.

OWENSBORO MUSEUM OF FINE ART, OWENSBORO

ROSINE BARN JAMBOREE, ROSINE

FARMER AND FRENCHMAN WINERY, ROBARDS

DAWSON SPRINGS TRAIL TOWN

GREEN RIVER DISTILLING CO., OWENSBORO

WESTERN KENTUCKY-STYLE BARBECUE

GRAPEVINE LAKE MOUNTAIN BIKE TRAILS, MADISONVILLE

From marshland to high ridges deep pits, the Peabody Wildlife Management Area near Beaver Dam is nature untamed — an ideal setting for serious birdwatching, fishing and quail hunting. A different name, but the outdoor recreational pursuits remain the same — and then some — within the heavily forested Tradewater River Wildlife Management Area in Christian and Hopkins counties.

UNCLE PEN’S CABIN, CROMWELL

Find tamer outdoor pursuits at Henderson’s Cates Farm & Produce, where fall fun means sleuthing through a 12-acre corn maze and visiting the pumpkin patch, among other autumn-themed, family-friendly activities.

BLUEGRASS MUSIC HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM, OWENSBORO

Take me out to the ballgame — especially if it’s the Madisonville Miners, a summer collegiate baseball league — with nine innings of nonstop family fun at Madisonville’s historic Elmer Kelley Stadium. Or enter a garden of Eden at Owensboro’s Western Kentucky Botanical Garden: thirteen themed gardens — daylily, rose, butterfly, native plants — enhanced with art sculptures, a children’s playhouse, an 1840s historic home and accessible paths.

Roll on into Hartford’s Bluegrass Motorcycle Museum, where Harley-Davidson and vintage, Americanmade motorcycles, including the world’s only 1902 Hafelfinger bike, gleam amidst a 40-year collection of motorcycle memorabilia. In Central City, see pristine, classic racecars at Kentucky Motorsports Hall of Fame & Museum, which shares space with the Muhlenberg Music Museum, paying tribute to the Everly Brothers, John Prine, Merle Travis and other legends.

KENTUCKY MOTORSPORTS HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM, CENTRAL CITY

A mid-1800s period-decorated log cabin — birthplace of a Kentucky governor. One of the world’s three remaining 1910-11 Buick Buggyabouts. Find both at Madisonville’s Ruby Laffoon Cabin and Historical Society Museum of Hopkins County.

Fine and decorative arts, 20th-century studio art glass and significant works of Picasso and Kentucky’s Frank Duveneck are among the treasures found at the free-admission Owensboro Museum of Fine Art. See historic murals painted by a WWII German POW at Morganfield’s James D. Veatch Camp Breckenridge Museum & Arts Center — and learn the unusual story of how they came to be here.

SLOUGHS WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA, CORYDON

4 Musts

Grab a Bite

Farmer and Frenchman Winery, Café and Cabin Rentals, Robards

Stop and Shop

Beachbum Farms Designs & Co., Henderson

Music, Moments, Magic

Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum, Owensboro

Local Heritage & Culture

The Big Twigs at Lake Malone State Park, Dunmor

MAHR PARK ARBORETUM, MADISONVILLE

AUDUBON MUSEUM & NATURE CENTER, HENDERSON

Regional Road Trips

1 Get immersed in Audubon: See “The Birds of America” masterwork among 200 artifacts relating to the self-trained naturalist and wildlife artist at the Audubon Museum and Nature Center within Henderson’s John James Audubon State Park. Browse nature-inspired gifts. Watch otters and beavers at play at the Audubon Wetlands.

2 In Madisonville, get lost among Mahr Park Arboretum’s 265 acres of Kentucky coffeetrees, American elms and more than 100 other woody plant species at the fishing ponds, championship disc golf course and Nature Play Area (amenities compliments of Mother Nature) and kayaking Lake Pee Wee.

3 Relax over classic Kentucky bourbon and learn about what was once the most advertised whiskey in the world. At the western gate of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®, Owensboro’s Green River Distilling Co., originally founded in 1885, offers tours, barrel thieving and cocktail classes.

4 It’s low. It’s slow and oh-so-Kentucky. It’s smoky, succulent and Southern, too. That’s barbecue on the West Kentucky Barbecue Belt — locally owned BBQ joints from Owensboro to Bowling Green, where the main event is doused with secret-recipe sauces flavored from tangy to molasses-sweet.

5 Meet the Everly Brothers and other musical icons, including Merle Travis and flutist Jim Walker, at the Muhlenberg County Music Museum. See Don Everly’s sweet ride, a pristine 1977 MG convertible, then head next door to the Kentucky Motor Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. Downtown Central City has lots of treasures, including Lu-Ray Park with a walking trail and outdoor concerts, and Stellian’s, home of the epic eight-pound pizza.

6 Pilgrimage to Bill Monroe Country in Beaver Dam and Rosine. From his childhood home at the Bill Monroe Homeplace to the Bill Monroe Museum, Uncle Pen’s Cabin and the Bill Monroe Gravesite at Rosine Cemetery, experience the historic sites and rich musical legacy connected to the Father of Bluegrass.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON STATE PARK, HENDERSON