We visited Louisville in June 2016 during Big Trip #1.

It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say we were in Louisville for one day. We arrived in late afternoon and left in late morning, but we managed to fit in a little bit of exploring. Louisville seems like a fun town; I’d like to return for longer than one day and get to know it better.

Campground

Since we were only in town for one night, our campground priorities were 1) proximity to Louisville and 2) safety. One campground appeared to be closer to downtown, but according to the online reviews, safety was an issue, so we chose Add-More RV Park just north of the city in Indiana. It’s more of a residential RV park and less of a camping “resort,” a no-frills place with no playground or pool, but it was clean and within 15 minutes of downtown Louisville. They have a weight restriction for dogs but we told Bugsy to suck in her gut and we were fine.

Eating and Drinking

Louisville has several breweries scattered around downtown; we only made it to two, plus a cool beer store.

Read J’s super rad Louisville brewery writeup here.

We had dinner (fish tacos!) and beer at Bluegrass Brewing Company in the heart of downtown Louisville. The scene there was touristy and kind of cheesy, and the beer was meh. There were positives, though: the fish tacos were good, and the bartender gave us a great recommendation to visit Goodwood next.

Goodwood Brewing Company is a 15 minute walk down Main Street from sparkly, commercial downtown to the East Market District, or NuLu, as it’s been rebranded. NuLu is a portmanteau for New Louisville; the neighborhood is full of character with its historic buildings and old warehouses that are gradually being rehabilitated and converted into condos, bars, restaurants, and shops. Goodwood is relaxed and unpretentious, and their wood-aged (hence the brewery name) beer is very good. The only bad part about our visit there was that we bought a 4-pack of a saison aged in red wine barrels to take home, and on our walk back to the car the bottom of the holder fell out and all the bottles broke. Nooooooo!

Pre-saison tragedy, we passed Louisville Beer Store close to Goodwood. What a selection! We found a hard-to-find Belgian we hadn’t had in years, and picked up a bunch of local bottles to try later. LBS is also a tasting room, with eight rotating taps, and a few people were hanging out at the “bar.” It’s a great little shop.

Running

The Ohio River is just north of Louisville, separating Kentucky and Indiana, and following the Indiana side of the river is the Ohio River Greenway paved trail. We ran several miles along the river, through the Falls of the Ohio State Park and the George Rogers Clark Homesite (he was born in Charlottesville, you know). I really wanted to run across the bicycle/pedestrian Big Four Bridge, an old railroad span linking the Ohio River Greenway to the Louisville Riverwalk, but it’s not dog-friendly. In addition to the paths along both sides of the river, you can run on many other running trails in parks, forests, and reserves near Louisville.