What to Do in Louisville (Aside from Miss Fisher Con)

Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory >

Batter up! It takes a special place to craft the #1 Bat in Major League Baseball. At the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, you can take the award-winning factory tour to see how the world-famous bats are created or tour the museum: Admire the World's Biggest Bat, which stretches 120 feet into the sky. Hold bats actually used by baseball superstars like Mickey Mantle, Johnny Bench, Cal Ripken Jr., and Derek Jeter. Face down a 90-mph fastball hurled by a major league pitcher. Count the homerun notches Babe Ruth carved into his Louisville Slugger for every home run he hit with it. Step into the batting cages and take some swings with a replica model of your hero's bat.

Tour guests go home with a free miniature souvenir bat, and the museum store has merchandise for every budget. You can even create a bat engraved with your name (or the name of someone special), just like the pros. Be sure to swing by!

Kentucky Derby Museum & Churchill Downs

The Kentucky Derby Museum, where every day is Derby day, is the official tour provider of historic Churchill Downs. When you visit the museum, you will find yourself immersed in the next best thing to actually being at the Derby! As the exclusive tour provider for the track, various tours are offered throughout the year even when the track isn’t in session with live racing. General admission includes two levels of family-friendly interactive permanent & temporary exhibits, including "The Greatest Race," a 360-degree immersive sound and visual experience that'll get your heart racing and emotions soaring; a walking tour of Churchill Downs Racetrack; access to the Gift Shop; Kentucky fare in the Derby Cafe Express; and much more!

21c Museum Hotel

This hotel is a multi-venue contemporary art museum coupled with a boutique hotel and restaurant that was founded by Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, contemporary art collectors and preservationists who believe in the power of contemporary art. 

The Speed Art Museum

Features paintings by Rembrandt, Picasso and Rubens, as well as contemporary art exhibits.

Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind

Founded in 1858, the American Printing House for the Blind is world's largest creator of braille and educational aids for blind users. Watch them being made, step-by-step, as you tour the facility. During your free visit, you will: Write your own name in braille. See books printed on century-old braille presses and modern digital versions. Explore the efforts of generations of blind and visually impaired students, teachers, and inventors to overcome obstacles to learning. Handle braille books, tactile maps, and globes. Tour a working recording studio where "Talking Books" are made.

The Filson Historical Society

The Filson was founded on May 15, 1884, by ten Louisvillians with a common love of history. The primary founder and first president was Reuben T. Durrett. The Filson’s mission is to collect, preserve, and tell the significant stories of Kentucky and Ohio Valley history and culture. One of several exhibits is Women at Work: Venturing Into the Public Sphere, which explores the diversity of women’s experiences in the public sphere in the late 19th century. Freed from many domestic tasks by industrialization, women’s engagement extended from home and family into the larger community. They organized as workers and in clubs, pursuing new roles as artists, educators, social reformers, and business owners. They also became conscious of their shared identity as women, convening women’s rights conventions and organizing mass movements, including the decades-long struggle for suffrage.  

The Witches' Tree

If you like spooky history, take a walk to the Witches' Tree, a gnarled tree decorated with baubles and beads. Legend has it that this was a normal tree used by local witches in their rites. When the city planning committee planned to take the tree down, the witches - usually peaceful - were angry, and when a major storm came through 11 months after the tree was cut down, it was believed that the witches summoned a storm demon to get retribution. A lightning strike hit the tree's stump and a new tree grew - but it wouldn't be winning any beauty pageants. To this day, the community leaves trinkets on and around the tree to try and stay on the witches' good side!

The Muhammad Ali Center

The Muhammad Ali Center is an interactive museum and multicultural center dedicated to lifelong learning and inspiring people to pursue greatness in their lives and communities. Guided by Ali’s 6 principles, the Center’s galleries focus on the life and legacy of the boxing legend, and invite visitors of all ages to “…reflect upon one’s own individual values, inner strength, character, and what makes you the greatest person you can be.”

Classic Biplane Tours

Have you ever wanted to fly like Phryne? Take an aerial tour of Louisville in an open-cockpit biplane! There are multiple flight options for adventurous Adventuresses, Adventurexes, and Adventurers.

Prohibition Craft Spirits Distillery >

Take a Prohibition-themed distillery tour, where you'll see the tools bootleggers used to make moonshine in the early 1920s, when alcohol was prohibited in the US, and walk among a collection of historical memorabilia of the era. You'll hear true accounts of the crazy and often dangerous things that were done to illegally produce, transport, and sell liquor, as well as the shocking things the US government may have done to try and stop them.

After the tour, wander over to our tasting bar and enjoy our spirits. You’ll likely want to try PCS Distilling Company's newest creation: NULU, a Blue Agave Reposado imported from Mexico, then brought home to Louisville to aged in Bourbon Barrels. And there's also vodka, gin, or rum – the ticket price includes a taste of all five award-winning spirits.

Old Louisville Ghost Tour or Old Louisville Walking Tour

Impressive Victorian mansions and quirky residents have earned national attention for Old Louisville, where bourbon barons, racetrack royalty, and titans of tobacco settled in the 1800s. This narrated walk comes from books by David Dominé, who often guides groups himself. Tales involve personal experiences and neighborhood gossip. The New York Times recommends this as the first thing to do during a visitor's "36 Hours in Louisville."  

Locked In: The Louisville Escape Game

A fun and challenging real life adventure for groups of 2-8 people. Your team works together finding clues and solving puzzles to escape from a locked room. you only have 60 minutes! Can you escape in time?

The Mercury Ballroom 

The Mercury Ballroom opened in the Spring of 2014 as Louisville's newest live music concert hall, adding another incredible piece of entertainment to Louisville's Historic Theatre District. The Wright-Taylor building, which now houses the Mercury Ballroom, was originally constructed in 1928 as office space for Wright & Taylor Inc., distributers of Old Charter Bourbon Whiskey. The Old Charter Distillery was located across the street on the northwest corner of 4th and Chestnut St. During the prohibition era and through the late 1960s, the building housed a variety of small commercial businesses. Added to the National Register of Historic places in 1984, the Wright-Taylor Building was a marvel in its day for its imaginative use of stylistic motifs and variety of color, and it remains a rare local example of Tudor-Gothic architecture. The Mercury Ballroom is proud to utilize this beautiful historic building to host Louisville's greatest concerts and events.

Bourbon and Derby

Experience a unique, customizable sightseeing tour: traditional bourbon distilleries and Churchill Downs. Your guide leads you to iconic distilleries where you can learn about the bourbon production process and taste some special bourbon (21+ years) as well as touring Churchill Downs. Minimum of two people required per tour.

< Rebecca Ruth Chocolate Tour and Museum

The Home of the Bourbon Ball! Rebecca Ruth has been handcrafting gourmet chocolates since 1919. Take the 35-minute tour and learn about time-tested recipes and candy making techniques taught to us by Ruth Booe. Tours include a free chocolate sample!