The Domes & Dripstones Tour at Mammoth Cave National Park was easily one of the highlights of our…read moretrip to Kentucky. If you're looking for a cave tour that combines incredible scenery, fascinating geology, and a bit of a workout, this is the one to book. The ranger-guided tour is well organized and packed with interesting information about the cave's history, formations, and the natural processes that shaped this underground world over millions of years. The descent into the cave through the natural sinkhole entrance is an adventure in itself, and while the 638-640 stairs sound intimidating, they're absolutely worth it. The highlight for us was Frozen Niagara. The stunning collection of stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and delicate cave curtains is unlike anything we've ever seen. It's amazing to think these formations were created one drop of water at a time over thousands of years. Throughout the tour, the massive domes and enormous passageways constantly reminded us why Mammoth Cave is the world's longest known cave system. The guides were knowledgeable, friendly, and happy to answer questions, making the experience both educational and enjoyable. The cave's constant 54-degree temperature also makes it a comfortable activity no matter the season. Be prepared for plenty of stairs and wear comfortable shoes, but don't let that discourage you. The tour is paced well, with opportunities to stop and admire the scenery along the way. If you're visiting Mammoth Cave National Park, the Domes & Dripstones Tour is an unforgettable experience and one we would enthusiastically recommend to anyone looking for a memorable underground adventure. Five stars! Check out our video on our socials @reessroots

I wish I just day tripped it and did not spend money to stay the night. I was travelling solo and…read morethis was my last stop before heading back to Maryland. I was arriving from St. Louis. I booked one of the historic cottages to stay the night and planned on hanging out in the bar on site. When I first arrived my cottage wasn't ready to check in yet and I still had a couple hours until my tour. I went to the restaurant and sat at the bar. I was informed that they did not have a bartender but the servers were rotating serving the guests at the bar. I was promptly greeted by the waitress but ultimately moved to a table because the chairs are not tall enough for the height of the bar. It would have been extremely awkward and uncomfortable to eat up there. I had a salad and sweet potato fries and two IPA beers. Everything was delicious and the service was great. I went on the Historic Cave tour which was great. I wish I remembered the rangers name who gave the tour because he was amazing and hilarious! After the tour we (another solo traveler and I) planned to go to the bar and grab a drink before she hit the road for her next stop. Upon arrival to the restaurant, the bar was open but the host (who admitted he was new and did not know what he was doing) refused to let us sit there. He said there was no bartender. I told him earlier they allowed people to sit there and the servers helped. He said they only had 3 servers so he handed us a buzzer to wait for a table. The restaurant had half of its tables open. She decided she didn't want to wait so she left. I was then frustrated because I did not want to sit at a table alone again so I ordered food to go and ate in my cabin. There is no service in the cabins because you are in the middle of nowhere. As a solo female traveler I rely on meeting people at restaurants by sitting at the bar. This on site restaurant clearly was not staffed well enough to accommodate their guests in the middle of the summer when everyone is travelling. The other stores that served coffee and ice cream were closed by the time I finished my 3:30 tour. The prices in the gift shop were extremely high and I refused to pay for a magnet that was $12.00. I ended up going to bed super early and hit the road at 3 am because there was nothing else to do. For these reasons and more, I would have preferred to come for my tour and left to stay somewhere else.

Such a fun little spot with excellent history about Louisville, cute souvenirs, and lots of…read moreinteresting bourbon themed gear. The ladies working on Sunday were so pleasant and welcoming. It was crowded with the convention crowd, and only one person checking people out, so be wary if you're in a time crunch & there's a line.

This is an exceptional visitor's center! I highly suggest starting your Louisville trip here. They…read morehave cute souvenirs, friendly staff, and lots of great suggestions on how to do Louisville. We needed a lunch suggestion and they pointed us to Mussels and Burger, which was phenomenal! We also got a map of downtown and some recommendations on a few distilleries. Totally worth the stop if you're new to Louisville!

The Old Guide's Cemetery is small cemetery located near the Mammoth Cave National Park visitor's…read morecenter off Heritage Trail. Stephen Bishop, a mixed race slave who really explored and mapped out the Mammoth Caves, is buried here. He is the most famous of the guides. He was the first man to cross Bottomless Pit, the first man to discover an underground river and the first man to discover eyeless fish. He mapped out and named many of the rooms in the cave system. The Bishop Map was used as a guide map for over four decades. He was also given credit for his work which was unusual for a slave. In 1839, the Mammoth Cave property was bought by Dr. John Croghan, which also included Stephen Bishop and other enslaved people. Dr. Croghan used the caves as a tourist attraction and as a place to "treat" tuberculosis patients. Unfortunately, the therapy actually harmed the patients and eventually even Dr. Croghan and Stephen Bishop contracted and succombed to tuberculosis. His work, though, contributed to understanding the epidemiology and ultimately limit spread of the disease. The cemetery is the burial site of three tuberculosis patients who died during the cave treatment experiments.

Worth the entry fee for sure! These games are much different than mammoth caves. They are…read moreconsidered caves along with caves are considered dry caves. The tour guide did a fantastic job of explaining everything and pointing out diverse structures that a novice cave person would miss

Cool place to visit (literally) took a side detour from our drive into Louisville. Tour guide was…read morenice and gave us good tour.

On our way up from Knoxville TN to Louisville KY, we made sure to swing by here to see Abraham…read moreLincoln's birthplace! It was thunder storming and lightning abound when we arrived but cleared up during our stroll through the memorial and the visitor center. There is a longer path to the side of the visitor center where it's all covered by trees so we didn't get rained on. Inside the memorial is the replica of the log cabin where he was born. That closes at 4:30pm, whereas the visitor center closes at 5:00pm. I made sure to stop at the sinking springs next to the memorial for the watering hole where Abe took his first drink of water. It felt very cold in that area compared to the humid weather surrounding it. Very cool. So glad we made a stop here on our roadtrip!

Honestly? Abe deserves better, but it just doesn't seem like there's enough material to work with…read morehere, which may not necessarily be anyone's fault. My top-tier chum who literally went to the school of hospitality and I came by here last Thursday in the late morning at my request. I love presidential shizzle - one of my earliest memories is getting a book of the presidents and learning all of them in order, and instead of going to Disney World (don't get me started), my parents took me to a number of presidential homesteads and birthplaces when I was in elementary school, mostly the heavy hitters in VA and the Adams one in Braintree, MA. And I've legitimately celebrated President's Day by dragging some of my chums to Grant's Tomb at 9AM to listen to a reenactment of the 1873 State of the Union. So I came into this with some nerdy, executive branch street cred. Part of it was definitely the mediocre rainy weather, but I just wasn't that impressed. I want to emphasize that there might not have been anything the National Park Service could have done once they got involved, because the biggest issue here is that the actual birthplace doesn't really exist anymore. I'm sure they got the land/property lines correct, but the log cabin that we all naturally associate with Abe? Gone, so you have to settle for a recreation, and that recreated cabin isn't given its own space outside - it's housed in the Memorial Building, which makes that experience more claustrophobic than it should be, since the cabin takes up about 70% of the room. There may be excellent reasons why it had to remain indoors, but I found that decision pretty curious. And bottom line - it's hard to have a national park based on a birthplace that's largely abstract and not something you can see with your own eyes. The Visitors Center was relatively small but pleasant. I haven't stopped to think about it until now, but I'm guessing that the vast majority of Lincoln exhibits are at his home in Springfield, IL, which I know DOES physically exist. Again, they just didn't have as much to play around with here so they're relying more on fancy/tasteful Lincoln quotes on their walls versus, say, a glass case featuring his top hat. When a sizeable chunk of your Visitors Center is taken up by a gift shop and little movie theater showing a 15-minute video about Lincoln, you're pretty much broadcasting the fact that you don't have a lot of standalone items to display, which is a shame. The biggest selling point is the Memorial Building, notwithstanding the replica cabin situation inside. It's built up on a hill with 56 steps for each year of Abe's life, and bares a pretty strong resemblance to the more notable Presidential memorials in DC. I thought it was cool that several Presidents have stopped by, now knowing that this is a bit in the middle of nowhere, but it's also just an hour outside Lexington so it was also disappointing to learn that no Presidents have visited since Eisenhower. They can't fit in a 15-minute photo op over the course of four to eight years? Come on. It's Abe. The NPS rangers (right word?) were very nice. I'd be curious what the pecking order of historic sites is for the NPS but I have to think this isn't at the very tippy top. Regardless, lots of smiles and at least one of them went out of their way to ask us if we had any questions and to (unprompted) pull out a map to orient us before we left the Visitors Center to explore the grounds a bit. If you're in the area, sure, pay your respects to the beginning of Honest Abe's story. But if you have more time/bandwidth, I think the play is to jump ahead in the timeline and get yourself up to Illinois.

One of the best welcome centers we have been to-- and we have been to a lot!…read moreThe beautiful flowers outside makes the place look more like a botanical garden than a welcome center. The cut out of Dolly inside made us smile, as did the clean bathrooms. They had cute rocking chairs and a fire place and lots of books and brochures I saw people taking. They had a separate building with ice, vending machines and a coffee machine to purchase coffee. Lots of smiling faces due to the cleanliness!

Facilities clean/smelt good I heard an employee kindly…read moreaddress another person, sounded like he gave helpful information. Everywhere I looked there was info on how to be more vigilant and encouraged nonsmoking. Pet walk was nice and maintained. Always impressed with how welcome centers always have their employees maintain their spaces.

Very helpful staff and they have some very little known event rooms/halls that they will rent for…read morespecial events to the community or private parties. They are very well equipped with tables, shares sound system and to top it off friendly staff.

From the owner: The Elizabethtown Tourism and Convention Bureau aids tourists in finding all the information they…read moreneed about Elizabethtown attractions, hotels, restaurants, and events.

Welcome to Southern Indiana! This little area is too…read moreincredible! Being new to the area and exploring this visitors center is located in downtown Jeffersonville. Make sure and stop in. The staff here are excited to share the joy of the area. It's not just Jeffersonville here! Go and explore. They have Clarksville and New Albany! But that's as far as we have ventured. As we make our way through the most of our new city, town, neighborhood, and community development this place was packed with al sorts of details. Do you need a reason why? Look no further, you need that perfect location for a reason for coming here. Come in and snap that perfect pic of why you came and stopped here. The area if you choose to stay like us is perfect. Either way this place is a must visit. For the knowledge on the area. They have a small gift shop that carry locally made products for you to purchase as a keepsake. The ironic woman, Rosie the Riveter is from Jeffersonville and they carry a wide variety of products to celebrate her and passion for life. You can do it! Now let's get our passion for life no matter where your road takes you.

When I visit a new area, I try to stop at the visitor center. These types of places are always so…read moreinformative, and the people who work at visitor centers are always eager to help. You can tell they really love the town/city that they're representing. I love people who genuinely love things. The Southern Indiana Visitor Center definitely has people behind the counter who love Southern Indiana. They made me feel even more psyched than I already was to explore the area. They offered tips on what to see, what to eat, the best places to park, and advice about whether or not I should bundle up before heading out on my walk. (Apparently, I might have looked like I needed more layers.) There are also dozens of brochures and booklets about area attractions, which you can take for free. Basically, if you're thinking of visiting the area, this is the place to visit. The Southern Indiana Visitor Center also has a little gift shop full of Indiana paraphernalia, including magnets, candles, bags, artwork, books, cutting boards and lots more. You can also find merch for the local soccer team, Southern Indiana FC. This visitor center is located in downtown Jeffersonville, within walking distance of the pedestrian bridge that will take you to Louisville.

My friend and I went to the Wild Turkey Visitors Center last week as that's where we started and…read moreended our tour. Our tour guide and tour were really cool. Not my favorite tour of the major nearby distillery's but still fun. The tasting was really good though. The Visitors Center was really nice. They have dedicated tasting rooms and a decently sized retail section where you can purchase pours of their various whiskey's. All in all, it was a really good experience.

What a waste. Beautiful bar area , no free tasting!!! Drove…read moreextra 30 min out to try and left with nothing. Very frustrating and disappointing.

Hmm... Mixed bag for our stay at The Lodge at Mammoth Cave. We were there just last week and the…read moregovernment shutdown had the cave closed which was heartbreaking but not a reflection on the lodge. The lodge, park and grounds were very quiet due to the shutdown. All the staff we encountered at the Lodge were very nice. The cafe there off the lobby had very affordable meals especially at breakfast. $8.50 for 2 eggs made to order, bacon/sausage, country potatoes and biscuits/toast! Breakfast was the winner, dinner was edible but not great. Definitely skip the "Hot Brown" sandwich. So why 3 stars? Our room (316) was extremely dated. And at close to $200 a night I expected better. There was an overpowering smell of mildew. The bathroom sink was cracked. The toilet was wobbly. Cracked tile in the dingy tub that also had a rusted shower curtain rod.

My husband and I stopped in for lunch after a cave tour. This is a very popular destination so pack…read moreyour patience there could be a wait, expect 15+. Limited bar seating. The food is delicious and reasonably priced. The service is very good.