A girl's trip to Louisville, KY and the Bourbon Trail
When I found out my friend Rachel drinks bourbon, I quickly suggested we take a trip together to Louisville and experience the Bourbon Trail. This was back in 2019. This would be our first time traveling together on a girl’s trip! She was down and we each had busy work schedules but planned roughly for the first half of 2020. Well, we all know what happened next.
Which brings us to April 2022, the trip that was finally happening!!
How we prepared for our trip and how you can see Louisville, KY and the Bourbon Trail too:
Figure out when you want to go and book your flights.
We chose to go early in April for three nights, four days. This would be a good month before the Kentucky Derby with fairly decent weather, with reasonable flight and hotel prices for our schedules. I booked my flight using American Airlines miles and paid under $20 in taxes. Had I paid out of pocket, it would’ve been about $150 round trip on a direct flight. It was important to us to fly direct to Louisville and on a major airline. Thankfully we did because Spirit ended up canceling a large number of flights, leaving travelers stranded and scrambling, during our travel days.
Additionally, we confirmed that Louisville is in Eastern Time like South Florida. As you book your trip, keep in mind any time zone changes!Book your hotel.
Knowing the nature of our trip and keeping safety at the top of our minds, we skipped renting a car. Instead, we picked a hotel within walking distance to the top distilleries we wanted to visit. For anything further away, we looked up the driving time on Google Maps and decided to take a rideshare. We booked a double room at the Aloft Louisville Downtown which is one mile or less from five different distillers. Of those five, we booked tours at Old Forester, Rabbit Hole, and Angel’s Envy.Book your tours and activities.
If you plan to visit the Bourbon Trail, I recommend you book tours three to four months in advance as they fill up fast. This will give you the greatest options. We chose our tours about two-three weeks prior and had luck getting in, especially as we were a group of two. Old Forester we booked while in Louisville - there must’ve been a cancellation. We also booked a tour at Stitzel-Weller while in town as it ended up working with our schedule. There was one ticket left and they kindly accommodated space for two in the tour.
As much as this was a drinking tour, we had to go to Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum. Our top two activities were visiting Angel’s Envy and Churchill Downs. We booked these first and planned our trip around them.Figure out where you want to eat.
What! How is this one last? It’s arguably the most important considering this is a drinking trip. I’m vegetarian and it was no problem finding good restaurants with vegetarian options. Rachel was great about making reservations for breakfasts and dinners.Leave room to explore.
It’s a vacation! Leave unscheduled time to explore, revisit an area, take a nap (I did) and overall just take your time. Neither of us like being rushed. In the NuLu area, we found a new shop called Jones & Daughters. We were able to check out the store, and go back before leaving so Rachel could purchase a bourbon print. And we visited an extra distillery!
Additional Resources we used to plan our trip:
Yelp
Google Maps
Google Flights
If you want to support my travel blog or you can’t wait for all the posts, you can buy a digital download of our itinerary here. This 3-night Louisville itinerary includes the hotel, distillery tours, Churchill Downs, and restaurant recommendations.