Tripping in Kentucky

Tripping in Kentucky

Kentucky State Capitol Rotunda

It bothers me how many people plan vacations to far away places and only bother with local points of interest when relatives come to visit.  I’m not just talking about other people.  It’s a long standing joke that New Yorkers don’t visit the Empire State Building.   The same is true of Kentuckians, and our family has been as guilty as anyone.

We go frequently to Land Between the Lakes, less so to  Mammoth Cave and Cumberland Falls, but I had never been to Boonesborough, My Old Kentucky Home or even our state capitol until a couple of years ago.  As I have looked at guide books for various far off areas where we plan trips, I realize there are many places in Kentucky that I’ve never been.  In an effort to correct this and educate people about places to see closer to home, Jim and I have a year long series of posts in the planning stages for this blog.

Cumberland Falls

We intend to take a hard copy map (Yes, Virginia, they do still exist.) and divide it into a grid of 12 equal areas.  We will pick points of interest in each grid and spend a month researching and visiting each one. We’re thinking that we’ll try to do some local interviews as part of the process. We hope to provide in-depth coverage of each area.  It will be a regular feature and may include more than one post a month, depending on how much information we dig up.

Included will be events of interest, not just the month we’re covering, but all year long.  It will be kind of like one of Jim’s photography club “year long challenges.”  We may even decide to turn the year’s posts into a Travel Guide book of some sort.  If it turns out well, we’ll extend it further afield the next year to cover an adjoining state, maybe Tennessee or Ohio.

I’m not sure yet when the series will start.  We’re already committed to major road trips into October.  Maybe we’ll plan something to hit the ether waves during November, just in time for the holiday kickoff.

2 thoughts on “Tripping in Kentucky

  1. I love the photograph at the top of your blog. Looks like it’s from a Renaissance festival? You are correct in your assessment that people do not visit the places that are locally to their home unless relatives visit. I started seeing that phenomenon during my teen years, when my family and I traveled to Disney. Each year, we drove there, 24 hours away fro the suburbs of New Jersey, meeting up with good family friends in Orlando. Each year, we always asked them the same question “So, isn’t it exciting living next door to Mickey Mouse?” and it took us several years before we finally understood their response “not really.” Today, we live near George Washington Mount Vernon’s estate and hardly ever go there, despite the fact that tour buses clog the highways eeach and every day. Best of luck with your tour guide idea – sounds fantastic!

    1. Thanks Amanda. Yes the header photo is a Renaissance festival. We switch it out regularly, usually to reflect where we’ve been or where we expect to be soon. This one is both. We were at the Renaissance Faire the first weekend in June (when this photo was taken.) and we are going back this coming Saturday.

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