Kentucky Road Trip (Top Sites for Families!)

Are you looking for fun things to do in Kentucky on a road trip with your kids? Does your family love learning about American history, exploring top natural wonders and discovering cool natural phenomena? If yes, then this is the perfect post for you.

Over the years our family has visited many places, across Kentucky on multiple road trips, and to us, we feel that there are a couple of sites that really stood out above the rest.  These sites really impressed our family when we visited and I’d love to share them with you!

 

 

Kentucky Road Trip (Top Sites With Kids):

Mammoth Cave

Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace

Cumberland Falls

 

Mammoth Cave

 

Why You Should Go:

Mammoth Cave is the World’s Longest Known Cave System with more than 400 miles of passages explored and new ones still being discovered today! 

At Mammoth Cave, you can explore this incredible cave system through several different tour options. These tours take you through various sections of this enormous cave system with approximately 10 miles being open to the public. (Though on most tours you’ll only explore about a mile or two.)

 

What Our Family Loved:

Our family chose the Domes and Dripstones Tour and we highly recommend it, if it is available. This is a 2 hour tour covering ¾ mile and it focuses on finding stalactites and stalagmites and learning about the science behind this enormous cave system. It was fantastic! 

One of our family’s favorite moments on this cave tour was when the tour guide momentarily shut off all of the lights and we were able to experience its absolute complete darkness! This is an incredible experience in a cave that everyone should do at least once in their life! It’s crazy how dark, darkness can really be!

Family Tip: Make sure you hold onto your kids hands before they turn off the lights in the cave because some kids can get really scared of the complete darkness. By holding their hand, they’ll know you’re still there and it may prevent them from freaking out.

One aspect of Mammoth Cave that I also really enjoyed is that they didn’t ruin the cave experience with colorful lighting along the path or other types of unnatural theatrics. Instead they simply left this underground world as natural as possible. To me, this made our cave exploration experience so much better than some of the other touristy type of caves we’ve seen.

 

 Helpful Hints:

Tour reservations at Mammoth Cave are highly recommended. Also, the temperatures within the cave range from 50-60 degrees so you may want a jacket.

Suggested Duration:

This depends on the length of tour you choose.

 

 

Books to Get Kids Excited About Visiting a Cave:

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Caves and Caverns by Gail Gibbons

I love her books and I love how in this book she provides a ton of great information to help kids get excited to explore a cave.

Best for Ages 6-10 years

 

Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace

Hodgenville, KY

Why You Should Go:

Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace Memorial is a great place to learn about and talk to kids about Abraham Lincoln, who he was and why he’s so significant in American history! 

And personally I thought that it was an incredible feeling to be able to walk here on the same land where Lincoln took his first steps and to stroll through the woods where he first played!

What Our Family Loved:

I loved visiting Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace because this created a wonderful opportunity to talk to our children a little bit about the history of the United States. It also provided us with an incredible opportunity to discuss Lincoln’s amazing journey from this small log cabin where he was born to living in the White House as president of the United States. This story really shows us that we can do anything (even become president of the United States) if we set our mind to it.

Family Tip: There is also a fantastic lawn here to let kids run and play.

For me traveling is all about learning about our world and learning about my family. Here at Lincoln’s Birthplace I also learned a little about what makes my son Matthew’s eyes light up!

This free site can be seen in 1 hour.

Side Note: You can visit his boyhood home right down the road at Knob Creek. We were not able to visit due to time constraints.

Website: https://www.nps.gov/abli/index.htm

Let Kids Learn More About Abraham Lincoln before Visiting:

 Who Was Abraham Lincoln? by Janet Pascal, Who HQ

This is a great book that helps children learn all about Abraham Lincoln and why he was such an important president!

Best for Ages 8-12 years.

 

 I am Abraham Lincoln (Ordinary People Change the World) by Brad Meltzer

This is a great book that follows Abraham Lincoln from childhood to presidency and brings American History to life for young children.

Best for Ages 5-8 years.

 

 

 

 

Cumberland Falls

Why You Should Go:

Cumberland Falls is a dramatic 125 foot wide waterfall that plunges 7 stories into a gorge! This waterfall is also known as the “Niagara of the South” and it is the largest waterfall south of Niagara Falls in New York! This a great waterfall to swing by and visit on any Kentucky road trip. 

Here at Cumberland Falls there are two separate viewpoints where you can view it. Both viewpoints are are just a short walk from the parking lot which makes it very convenient to see. But there is another reason as to why this waterfall made our top sites list. And that is because of it’s rare but famous Moonbow!

Moonbows are a rare phenomena in the world. In fact there’s only a few places in the entire western hemisphere where they are known to occur. This is because first, a moonbow is created by moonlight instead of direct sunlight. Second, the moon has to be low in the sky and it must be near a full moon phase. Third, the sky must be very dark. Fourth, water droplets must be present in the air in the opposite direction of the moon. And when all of this lines up, a moonbow appears. And it looks like a white rainbow!

Two places where moonbows are known to occur in the United States is in Yosemite National Park, CA and here at Cumberland Falls! So if you are a person that likes to seek out unique and extraordinary events, then checking out Cumberland Falls’ Moonbow on a clear moonlit evening would be a fantastic phenomena to try and see.

 

Traveler Tip:

In National Parks there is usually no data service for your phone. In other words, you can’t download new maps as you’re driving. Yet the GPS antenna in the phone still works. Therefore, prior to your vacation I highly recommend that you download the maps of where you will be. If you have exact addresses then the GPS will still work and you can continue to use Google maps to get directions to where you want to go next.

We found this out the hard way. As soon as we entered into each National Park on this trip, we lost service and then had no idea of where we were going! It was when we got home that we discovered this trick.

Suggested Duration:

We recommend allowing between 30- 45 minutes to view this waterfall.

 

Website: https://parks.ky.gov/parks/resortparks/cumberland-falls/things_to_do.aspx

 

I hope you enjoyed reading about some of our favorite things to do on a Kentucky road trip with kids. This is a continuously growing list and as I come across new and exciting things to do in Kentucky with kids that our family enjoys I will add them.

 

Have a Great Road Trip in Kentucky with Your Traveling Feet!