Found this gem in Versailles, KY. This place is for both young and old alike. There are working…read moretrain displays that are fun to watch. One is from the old Purcell Dept. Store from Lexington, KY. Very cool. It was actually an old Lionel Sales demonstration set that Lionel sold to their dealers. The owner has much knowledge about trains and stories to share plus there are many nostalgic toys displayed throughout. Have Fun!

Neat place to visit in the area. Cheap ($5) per person admission fee, so minimal is today's…read moreeconomy. The wife I visited on our anniversary. She had me worried when she said we were going to a train station. I survived.

My husband, our two kids (ages 4 and 8), and I had the most wonderful time celebrating the 4th of…read moreJuly at the Kentucky Historical Society. There were so many fun activities for the children, and it was the perfect place to stay cool out of the summer heat. The absolute highlight of our day was visiting the gift shop and meeting Delaney. She was incredibly sweet, answered all of our questions, and even put a beautiful red ribbon in my daughter's hair. She chatted with us throughout the day and truly made us feel so welcome--she is an absolute gem in the middle of downtown Frankfort! My kids are absolutely in love with their new toys, and I will cherish the gorgeous Ginkgo leaf earrings my husband bought me. Thank you for making our holiday weekend so special! Much love, the Blair family from Lexington

The Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort is an amazing modern facility that preserves the…read morehistory of Kentucky. Admission is included with ($8) admission to the Old State Capitol building. We spent about an hour walking through the exhibits and learning. Many of the exhibits are hands-on and educational. The path through starts with the history of indigenous people of Kentucky through modern day. I found the many artifacts displayed very interesting. Information and additional artifacts about the early settlers of Kentucky were interesting as well. A separate area in the museum houses portraits of all the governors of Kentucky. Upstairs is a research library. The gift shop offers various souvenirs, books and locally crafted items for sale. The center is worth a visit if you love history and especially good for kids. There is a dedicated parking lot for the museum, but we found free street parking down the street.

We stumbled on this museum while we had some extra time. I had zero expectations and it was…read moregreat. Well laid out and detailed explanations and so many old artifacts - definitely worth a visit.

If you're a history buff, this is an amazing place to stop! This museum is very informative and has…read morea lot of well preserved items from various time periods across U.S History. The price of admission is very reasonable, and you're getting access to 3 museums including the beautiful outside area which is very scenic! I'd highly recommend people to visit here if you're interested in history, this is a top quality museum!

On our way up from Knoxville TN to Louisville KY, we made sure to swing by here to see Abraham…read moreLincoln's birthplace! It was thunder storming and lightning abound when we arrived but cleared up during our stroll through the memorial and the visitor center. There is a longer path to the side of the visitor center where it's all covered by trees so we didn't get rained on. Inside the memorial is the replica of the log cabin where he was born. That closes at 4:30pm, whereas the visitor center closes at 5:00pm. I made sure to stop at the sinking springs next to the memorial for the watering hole where Abe took his first drink of water. It felt very cold in that area compared to the humid weather surrounding it. Very cool. So glad we made a stop here on our roadtrip!

Honestly? Abe deserves better, but it just doesn't seem like there's enough material to work with…read morehere, which may not necessarily be anyone's fault. My top-tier chum who literally went to the school of hospitality and I came by here last Thursday in the late morning at my request. I love presidential shizzle - one of my earliest memories is getting a book of the presidents and learning all of them in order, and instead of going to Disney World (don't get me started), my parents took me to a number of presidential homesteads and birthplaces when I was in elementary school, mostly the heavy hitters in VA and the Adams one in Braintree, MA. And I've legitimately celebrated President's Day by dragging some of my chums to Grant's Tomb at 9AM to listen to a reenactment of the 1873 State of the Union. So I came into this with some nerdy, executive branch street cred. Part of it was definitely the mediocre rainy weather, but I just wasn't that impressed. I want to emphasize that there might not have been anything the National Park Service could have done once they got involved, because the biggest issue here is that the actual birthplace doesn't really exist anymore. I'm sure they got the land/property lines correct, but the log cabin that we all naturally associate with Abe? Gone, so you have to settle for a recreation, and that recreated cabin isn't given its own space outside - it's housed in the Memorial Building, which makes that experience more claustrophobic than it should be, since the cabin takes up about 70% of the room. There may be excellent reasons why it had to remain indoors, but I found that decision pretty curious. And bottom line - it's hard to have a national park based on a birthplace that's largely abstract and not something you can see with your own eyes. The Visitors Center was relatively small but pleasant. I haven't stopped to think about it until now, but I'm guessing that the vast majority of Lincoln exhibits are at his home in Springfield, IL, which I know DOES physically exist. Again, they just didn't have as much to play around with here so they're relying more on fancy/tasteful Lincoln quotes on their walls versus, say, a glass case featuring his top hat. When a sizeable chunk of your Visitors Center is taken up by a gift shop and little movie theater showing a 15-minute video about Lincoln, you're pretty much broadcasting the fact that you don't have a lot of standalone items to display, which is a shame. The biggest selling point is the Memorial Building, notwithstanding the replica cabin situation inside. It's built up on a hill with 56 steps for each year of Abe's life, and bares a pretty strong resemblance to the more notable Presidential memorials in DC. I thought it was cool that several Presidents have stopped by, now knowing that this is a bit in the middle of nowhere, but it's also just an hour outside Lexington so it was also disappointing to learn that no Presidents have visited since Eisenhower. They can't fit in a 15-minute photo op over the course of four to eight years? Come on. It's Abe. The NPS rangers (right word?) were very nice. I'd be curious what the pecking order of historic sites is for the NPS but I have to think this isn't at the very tippy top. Regardless, lots of smiles and at least one of them went out of their way to ask us if we had any questions and to (unprompted) pull out a map to orient us before we left the Visitors Center to explore the grounds a bit. If you're in the area, sure, pay your respects to the beginning of Honest Abe's story. But if you have more time/bandwidth, I think the play is to jump ahead in the timeline and get yourself up to Illinois.

We dropped into this museum on a whim. To be honest, we were looking for something interesting to…read moredo that would also take us out of the cold and windy weather! I'm so glad that we did! The museum has very interesting and well-designed exhibits. We were greeted at the entrance by a gentleman who gave us the "lay of the land", explaining that this museum focuses on the history of Frankfort and surrounding Franklin County, while a larger museum down the street (but closed on Mondays) covers all of Kentucky. He then gave us an overview of what to expect over the two floors of exhibits. A few of our favorite exhibits were: (1) Kentucky Bourbon; (2) Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives; (3) Frankfort and Film (Quick: what's Johnny Depp's connection to Frankfort?); and (4) the Goebal Assassination. The museum is open Monday-Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm. Admission is free, but donations are welcome. (No pressure but useful to continue their food work!)

Fantastic museum! Many artifacts, Frankfort has a surprisingly interesting history!! The museum is…read morequite big and if you have a free hour or so it's definitely worth a visit!!

A great place to learn about Noah's Ark, especially for me because I am not very familiar with the…read morestory. I'd been hearing about the Ark Encounter from friends for years, so we finally made the trip over the Fourth of July weekend. Ideally you can spend a half a day here... My pro tip: get there early, especially on weekends. There are huge crowds and while there's plenty of parking, it's $15 fee and you'll take a shuttle to the Ark. If you don't want a long walk in the full sun or long shuttle lines, arrive early or wait until a couple of hours before closing. Inside the venue there are plenty of clean bathrooms on every level. Be prepared to do a lot of reading and exploring. It's fascinating to see how they explain everything from food storage and waste to daily life aboard the Ark, along with exhibits covering the Ice Age and biblical history like Adam and Eve. I'd recommend this more for adults or older kids. Younger children might lose interest quick since many of the exhibits are reading based. We visited during a heat wave, so we skipped the zoo, restaurants, and zip lines outside. My only downside is that admission is a little pricey, especially since those attractions aren't included with the ticket but the park is well kept, so clean. The staff were amazing, super friendly and very knowledgeable.

I'm giving another review. Since my last visit was 4 years ago. I'm sticking with 3.5 stars…read more Again- staff was very friendly. Ark is jaw dropping and very awe inspiring. We felt like this attraction though is such a money grab especially for it being in the middle of nowhere. Many things are extra. And I didn't care for the amount of things that were about the man who built the Ark. I feel biblically - it shouldn't be about him. Many of his items were for sale in the gift shop, many movies were pertaining to him and lots of exhibits were about him and his opinion. I felt like there was almost less to do inside the Ark than my first visit but maybe I'm wrong. Buffet was good value for what you get. I'd recommend going a little before lunch. We didn't wait at all. The zoo was cute, you can pet a kangaroo- but was a bummer it's only on the path. So if a kangaroo doesn't cross the path you can't pet it. Zoo keeper was pretty abrupt about that. Eagle and barn animals were cool! Camel encounter costs extra. As well as gem mining and the Virtual Reality is extra too. Playground area was a hit for our kids. (This is free and included) We spent less than four hours here and we felt we did everything we could that was included in our ticket. We skipped the gift shops as it was very overpriced.