Bowling Green: Caves, Corvettes & Tons of Fun

Many travelers know Bowling Green as a land of caves and Corvettes. But Bowling Green is also a cosmopolitan college town with a flourishing cultural scene, plenty of dining, one of the state’s most innovative distilleries and diverse attractions to keep the whole family happy.

Better still, all those amenities are found nestled in the confines of a pleasantly scaled city where getting from place to place is a piece of cake – and the year-round beauty of South-Central Kentucky is never more than a few minutes away.
But first, about those caves and Corvettes!

Caves & Corvettes

Bowling Green is the perfect base for a visit to nearby Mammoth Cave National Park, home to the world’s longest, most accessible and best curated cave system in the world – all just a half-hour away! And for amateur cavers who want to bundle underground wonders in a convenient package, the area around Bowling Green is flat-out amazing.

Within a short drive, visitors can enjoy eight different cave experiences. There’s Lost River Cave, where year-round visitors can take an underground boat tour filled with mystery, including the legendary “man-eating” blue holes that are said to have swallowed up more than few Civil War soldiers when Confederate leader John Hunt Morgan used the area as a training ground. Or there are the glittering crystal walls of Diamond Caverns or Outlaw Cave, with its dramatic flowstones and reputation as a nineteenth century hideout for outlaws like Jesse James.

And if you love Corvettes – and 21st century manufacturing technology – now is the time to visit the GM Corvette Assembly Plant, which reopened in October 2013 after a $131 million upgrade. Among the changes: a new body shop where, for the first time, the aluminum frame for the all-new 2014 ‘Vette Stingray is being built in-house. Plan ahead for plant tours and register online in advance. (Tours run Monday-Friday, except holidays and when company business sometimes calls for cancellation of a tour).

If you’re traveling on a weekend or can’t make a factory tour, you can still get a detailed, close-up look at the history of America’s most famous sports car by visiting the National Corvette Museum, where more than 70 examples (including prototoypes) can be viewed – and where you’ll also find other rotating exhibits, like the family-friendly “GPS Adventures” exhibit on display through April 2014.
If automotive history and Americana are on your list of interests, you’ll want to tool by Circus Square in Bowling Green, where a lovingly restored 1920s-era Standard Oil gas station hearkens back to the old days and offers a great photo-op! (Though, alas, you won’t be able to buy gas for 17 cents a gallon.)

Raceways & Byways

Seeing sports cars rolling off the line or in a museum setting is cool, but it’s even more exciting to see them roaring down the dragstrip or around the oval at Beech Bend Amusement Park & Raceway, where races run from March through November, and where the water park offers cool, splashy solace on hot summer days. Ride the twisted Kentucky Rumbler wooden roller coaster or zoom down the 140-foot Zero-G to satisfy your need for speed!

But no matter what mode of transportation excites your imagination, Bowling Green has a way to explore it. The Historic Railpark & Train Museum celebrates the great age of rail in a fascinating L&N Railroad depot with exhibits that include gorgeously restored cars and engines that bear witness to the history of American engineering and design. Though small in scope, Aviation Heritage Park exhibits a few stellar examples of American aircraft, including a McDonnell Douglass F-4D Phantom II that saw significant combat action in Vietnam and a Grumman F9F5 Panther that entered service in 1952.
There’s something quintessentially American about this region of ancient caves and cutting-edge cars. Everywhere you look you see a graceful blend of old and new.

To get a feel for the countryside, take a drive along the Duncan Hines Scenic Byway. Back in the days before there was an interstate highway system, Hines (a Bowling Green native) and his wife, Florence, drove all over the states and published their take on the country’s restaurant scene in a 1935 book called Adventures in Good Eating. The road that bears his name winds through small towns and past old schoolhouses, train depots and the site of a Civil War skirmish.

If you want a different sort of driving tour, you might consider the “Reel Sights, Real Scary – A John Carpenter Driving Tour.” Though Carpenter never filmed here in his hometown, the maker of chillers like Halloween named many locations in his films after places he’d known growing up.

And if you’d prefer a slower mode of transportation, think about canoeing the Green River, or bicycling through town and country on quiet bike trails.

Dining & Distilling

As you tour the area, you’ll find plenty to explore in the way of food and beverages, too. For an old-time experience, a visit to Chaney’s Dairy Barn is a must. Famous throughout the state (and region) for old-fashioned homemade ice cream that occasionally shows up on upscale restaurant menus, Chaney’s offers a taste of the past. It’s a place where the cornbread and pimiento cheese are made the old-fashioned way, and where ice creams come in flavors like bourbon crunch and pralines and cream. (Seven months out of the year, you can also take the kids on a farm tour and wagon ride to see live milking demonstrations.)

If Chaney’s represents old-school artisanship, Corsair Distillery represents the newest wave in American spirits. Though Kentucky’s venerable bourbon distilleries have long been world-famous, Corsair has carved out a distinctive niche as a maker of small-batch boutique spirits that have won awards – and fans – all over the world.

Using traditional and experimental recipes, Corsair bottles absinthe, tripled-smoked whiskey, hopped bourbons and a host of experimental bottlings that are here and gone – all sought after by collectors and aficionados of the distiller’s art. If you’re fascinated by spirits, a Corsair tour and tasting will intrigue, inform and delight your senses!

Festivals & More

If you leave Corsair with a bit of a glow, never fear. You’re perfectly situated to take a walking tour through the historic sections of Bowling Green – especially the colorful, quaint Fountain Square. It’s been a center of community and government since the late 1700s and is still a vibrant model of a city center at its best, a place where you can stroll through shops or relax over a meal of, say, gumbo or jambalaya at 440 Main/Micki’s on Main, where Cajun and Creole cuisine is served and two dining areas let you choose an atmosphere that best suits your mood.

Culture and history buffs will enjoy the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, a gleaming, modern facility that hosts an outstanding schedule of plays and concerts. The Kentucky Museum – on the campus of Western Kentucky University – holds exhibits that run the gamut. See an Egyptian sarcophagus, Kentucky folk arts and crafts (including textiles, quilts and fine arts), a collection of vintage guns or a tribute to one of the state’s legendary guitar makers, Hascal Haile, whose instruments were played by luminaries like Chet Atkins.

And no matter what time of year you visit – from December, when holiday spirits pervade the city, to mid-summer, when events like the Duncan Hines Festival and the Southern Kentucky Fair take place, or in between, when the monthly Second Saturdays Festival brings seasonal fun ranging from country music to vintage car cruises – there’s always something going on in vibrant Bowling Green!

Start planning your trip today at www.visitbgky.com!

IF YOU GO

Bowling Green: Caves, Corvettes & Tons of Fun

Caves & Corvettes

Raceways & Byways

Dining & Distilling

Festivals & More

IF YOU GO

Attractions and Activities

Events

Dining

Lodging

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