Hey y’all! Earlier this year, a few of my friends and I decided to take a weekend trip to Kentucky to celebrate the end of the school year! We spent one day in Louisville and one day exploring Mammoth Caves and the surrounding areas.
It was a jam-packed weekend filled with goats, axe throwing, and lots of cheese! This post will be dedicated solely to Louisville, and my post next Monday will talk about our time in southern Kentucky at Mammoth Cave.
Day Trip to Louisville
In the map below, the blue and red icons denote places that we visited and the green icons are other attractions that we didn’t make it to but I know are very popular!
We were in Louisville on the Thursday before the Derby, but we didn’t venture down to Churchill Downs because even a tour of the grounds that weekend was over $60! Tour prices get cheaper in the off-season though, if that’s something you’re interested in seeing!
Goat Milk Stuff (Not on the map)
After breakfast at an Indianapolis Chick-Fil-A, we got back on the highway and started seeing signs for “Goat Milk Stuff.” Of course, we got off the highway to explore.
Turns out “Goat Milk Stuff” is this adorable little goat farm in Scottsburg, Indiana, where they raise goats and make all sorts of soaps and lotions and candies from the milk. We even got to pet a 3-week old goat named Fastball [lots of heart-eye emojis]!!
Honestly one of the best highway pit stops ever! We even got t-shirts so we could rep Goat Milk Stuff everywhere 🙂
The Louisville Visitors Center
If you search “Louisville” online, you’re sure to see a picture of a neon sign where “Louisville” is spelled out in a bunch of different pronunciations. I did a little bit of digging and figured out that the sign is hanging outside the visitors center, so that’s where we headed first.
I’ve always said “LOOEY-ville”, but maybe now I’ll switch to “LUH-vul”??
After perusing the visitors center and 4th Street Live (a blocked-off street with lots of shops, restaurants, and a stage) we headed to Porch Kitchen & Bar for lunch. The food was decently priced and they had everything from salads to barbeque to nachos.
Louisville Slugger Museum
After lunch, we headed to the Louisville Slugger Museum. For $15, you can take a tour of the factory, and you even leave with a little mini bat of your own.
You can’t take pictures in the factory itself, but I think the price is worth it to learn the history of the Louisville Slugger and see the high-tech machines that they use to custom-make bats for every MLB player.
Elsewhere in the museum, you can see the Hall of Fame wall, try your arm at pitching, and even hold the bats that real MLB players use! Since I’m moving to DC, I held the bat of Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper [if you’re a softball/baseball player, I’m so sorry about my form!].
None of us are super into baseball but the museum was definitely worth checking out.
21c Museum
Down the street is the 21c Museum and Hotel. The first floor is a (very avant-garde) art museum, and the rest of the floors are a trendy boutique hotel.
The building is famous for both the red penguins that sit on the roof and the huge, gilded David statue out front. We didn’t do much here other than take a lap around the lobby, but it was fun to see!
On the way to the hotel, we stopped outside of the science museum to check out this super cool mirrored satellite thing!
Please & Thank You
Any Louisville travel guide will tell you that Please & Thank You coffee shop has the best chocolate chip cookies in town, so you know we had to check it out. It definitely lives up to the hype! If you want a unique drink, try the Mexican hot chocolate.
Axe Throwing
Probably the highlight of the whole weekend was axe throwing. It’s kind of like going bowling [because there are throwing lanes] except instead of heavy balls there are sharp axes and you throw axes instead of roll them? Okay so maybe it’s not like bowling at all but it’s waayyy more fun!
I’m just going to throw the link to Flying Axes in here so I don’t have to field questions about safety, the way it works, etc., but just know that it’s very safe and the axes don’t weigh as much as you think they do. You’ll be able to see a video of us throwing in next week’s vlog!
My one tip would be to call ahead or book online because it gets busy very quickly.
We had so much fun competing against each other [you can play best of 5 rounds or first to 21 points (like cornhole)]. Seriously, look up axe throwing in your city and go with your friends for a great afternoon/night out!
Garage Bar and Louisville Cream
After a long afternoon of axe throwing, we headed up the street to Garage Bar for some delicious pizza [they make all of their sausage/pepperoni on site!] on their outdoor patio. We then capped off our trip with a visit to Louisville Cream for some great milkshakes and ice cream sandwiches before we headed south to the Airbnb and the caves.
Make sure to follow along next week for my recap of our trip to Mammoth Cave and our incredible Airbnb stay on a working cheese farm [oh yes, that’s a real thing!]. And as always, follow us on Twitter and Instagram for the latest and greatest updates. We’re running a pretty great giveaway through June 14, so head over to Gabby’s post to enter!
