Tené Kitchen & Bar – San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
We ate our way through San Miguel de Allende, and Tené at Casa 1810 Parque flattened the competition without breaking a sweat.
Places
Every museum, cave, castle, and world's-largest-thing we've pulled over for: one post per place, rated, photographed, and mapped.
James B. Beam Distilling Co. – Clermont, KY
The Jim Beam home place in Clermont is gorgeous, the shop has store-only bottles, and every tour was sold out when we arrived. Learn from us: book ahead.
Dollywood – Pigeon Forge, TN
We argued about the $95 ticket all the way to Pigeon Forge. The argument lasted fifty feet past the gates. Dollywood is the best-run park we’ve ever visited.
Nave Museum – Victoria, TX
A little Greek Revival temple built by a widow for her painter husband in 1932, now Victoria’s fine arts museum. It was closed on Christmas Day, but the building alone was worth the stop.
KMAC Contemporary Art Museum
Contemporary art and craft on Louisville’s Museum Row for eight bucks, kids free. Come for the rotating shows, stay for the staircase.
Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory – KY
The world’s biggest bat leans outside, Babe Ruth’s notched bat waits inside, and the factory tour sends everyone home with a mini Slugger.
Muhammad Ali Center – Louisville, KY
Six stories of the Greatest in downtown Louisville: fight film projected on a real ring, the 1996 Olympic torch, and a museum that cares more about the man than the boxer.
Speed Art Museum – Louisville, KY
Monet, Degas, Picasso, a 400-year-old English parlor, and bronze horses on the lawn: the Speed Art Museum gives Louisville a world-class art stop.
Squire’s Castle
A Standard Oil millionaire built the gatekeeper’s lodge first and never got around to the actual castle. The lodge is what half of Cleveland picnics around today.
Hidden River Cave & American Cave Museum
Mammoth Cave was closed for the government shutdown, so we accidentally found something better hiding under a small town’s Main Street. A swinging bridge, a dark history, and a full recovery.
Patterson Fruit Farm
Seven generations of Pattersons grow apples east of Cleveland, and every October Sunday half of Ohio shows up for the pie line. Come for the cider; budget patience for the crowd.
West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center & Tina Turner Museum – Brownsville, TN
Five small museums under one roof in Brownsville, anchored by the 1889 one-room schoolhouse where Anna Mae Bullock, the future Tina Turner, went to school.
Cincinnati Art Museum – Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati’s 1886 art palace in Eden Park holds 6,000 years of human creativity, the building itself might be the best exhibit, and admission is free.
Five Daughters Bakery East Nashville – Nashville, TN
The 100-layer doughnut takes three days to make and about eleven seconds to eat. The Meek family’s East Nashville shop is worth planning a morning around.
Donut Distillery – Nashville, TN
Mini donuts with a liquor license: whiskey glaze made with real Tennessee whiskey, donut shots, boozy flights, and a neon sprinkle wall in East Nashville.
Farmwald’s Restaurant and Dutch Bakery – Horse Cave, KY
An Amish family runs a restaurant, Dutch bakery, deli, and country store under one red roof off I-65 in Horse Cave. The rib eye sandwich alone is worth the exit.
Elwood’s Shack – Memphis, TN
A red shack in a Lowe’s parking lot with a smoker plumbed through the roof, slinging brisket, trout tacos, and pizza. It makes no sense, and it’s one of the best lunches in Memphis.
Cleveland Script Sign at Edgewater Park – Cleveland, OH
The Edgewater Park script sign is the best free photo op in Cleveland: big white letters, Lake Erie, and the whole downtown skyline lined up behind them.
Franklinton Slingshot – Columbus, OH
Franklinton has a 6,000-pound slingshot drawn and ready on a street corner, held down by a giant stone hand. Exactly as great as it sounds.
Horse Drawn Earth – Erie, PA
A junk-metal horse dragging the planet through a former rat trap factory lot in Erie. Free, quick, and exactly as strange as it sounds.
