The 18 Best Louisville Tours (by a local tour guide) - Let's Go, Louisville!
Welcome to Louisville, y'all! One of the best things to do in Louisville during your visit is to take a tour. You'll get to sit back, relax, let someone else take care of logistics (and maybe even feed you and serve you drinks!) and just enjoy yourself for a few hours. Now THAT sounds like a vacation!
But which tours in Louisville are worth the price? I've gotcha covered – just consider us your personal tour guides. (No really – I also run tours in Louisville, so you might actually see me on your tour!) Here are the best Louisville tours, from food tours to bourbon and distillery tours to history and ghost tours. And one baseball bat factory for good measure.
Planning to visit Louisville? Take a look at these posts to help you plan your trip:
Food Tours in Louisville
Louisville is a foodie city, y'all. We invented a bunch of delicious food that not enough people give us credit for, like beer cheese (yes! that was us!) and pulled pork (you're welcome, everyone) and several more that not enough people have tried, like bourbon balls, the Hot Brown, Modjeskas, and Derby Pie. In fact, in our guide to delicious, famous Louisville & Kentucky foods, fried chicken didn't even make the cut. Gasp.
So in a foodie city full of innovative, delicious culinary creatives, what's the best way to stuff your face while learning all about Louisville and Kentucky's heritage? If you guessed "food tour," you get a gold star!
Louisville Food Tours
The premiere walking food tour company in Louisville is Louisville Food Tours, and they truly lead the best food tours in Louisville. (Listen – are we biased because they're also our sister company? Yes. But all those 5-star reviews on Google and TripAdvisor aren't.)
Take your pick from a few different food tour offerings, each exploring Louisville's most beautiful and historic neighborhoods while telling the story of Louisville and Kentucky through the lens of its cuisine. You can take a food tour of the Original Highlands, winding your way through tree-covered streets lined with Victorian mansions (read our Highlands neighborhood guide here).
Or venture out after dark on the Phantoms of the Prohibition: Ghosts, Cocktails & Bites tour, which traces the footsteps of bourbon magnates and mobsters on historic Whiskey Row and combines a food/cocktail tour with a ghost tour (bonus points)!
But the most popular tour by far is the Nulu Food & History walking tour – read our full review here.
The NuLu Food & History Walking Tour by Louisville Food Tours tells the story of Louisville, NuLu, and Kentucky through its cuisine. On 6 delicious stops, you'll taste Kentucky classics like bourbon balls and fried chicken, see a historic home once occupied by Thomas Edison, taste a sweet treat inspired by a Victorian-era actress, and trace the history of German immigrants in Louisville.
Use the code LGL10 for 10% off your booking, and be sure to come hungry – there's a lot of food on this tour.
Derby City Brew Tours
Looking for a beer-focused food tour? Look no further than Derby City Brew Tours. Their daily "beer walk" visits 3 breweries in Louisville's Germantown neighborhood. They also offer a small bites tour that includes a few samplings from delicious local eateries.
Louisville Ghost Tours
Louisville is an old city .. and that means it's haunted AF! While the best time of year to seek out scary thrills is during Halloween season, you can venture out after dark on these spooky tours in search of Louisville's least living residents all year long.
Old Louisville Ghost Tours
Louisville is home to the largest collection of Victorian homes in the country. Yes – even more than San Francisco and New Orleans! And what do a lot of very old, very beautiful homes typically have? That's right, y'all: ghosts.
Old Louisville is Louisville's most beautiful neighborhood – and its most haunted. Ghosts lurk around the lush courtyards and streets of Old Louisville – and witches, too. On a haunted walking tour of Old Louisville, you'll listen to stories of wealthy titans who used to roam the streets as you explore St. James Court, Ormsby Avenue, Floral Terrace, and Millionaires Row by flickering gaslamp.
Important Note: there are several companies offering haunted walking tours of Old Louisville, but we only recommend ONE company, founded by David Dominé, a local historian and expert. The other ones are poor imitations that used his books (Phantoms of Old Louisville and Ghosts of Old Louisville) to create copycat tours. Book the original Old Louisville ghost tour!
Phantoms of the Prohibition Ghosts & Cocktails Tour
What would make a ghost tour even better? If you answered "drinking," then this unique tour is for you!
Venture out with Louisville Food Tours and explore the hidden stories of Louisville's haunted past. As you eat and drink your way down Whiskey Row, you'll meet the resident ghosts of Louisville's historic downtown, trace the footsteps of bourbon magnates and mobsters, discover hidden speakeasies in the belly of Whiskey Row, and learn the shocking true story of Prohibition.
If you think you know a little about Prohibition, this tour just might have you questioning everything. Like for instance: Carry A. Nation, the hatchet-wielding saloon smashing Kentuckian that is the poster child for Debbie Downer temperance ladies, was actually a certified bada** who history has given a completely undeserved bad rep. Or that the Blue Lady, who haunts one of Louisville's most famous historic hotels (you know, the one made famous by the Great Gatsby) was actually murdered by a celebrated Kentucky war hero.
The stories on this tour are as fascinating as the ghosts, and the Prohibition-era cocktails make the perfect accompaniment to Louisville's spooky history. You can book your tour at Louisville Food Tours and use the code LGL10 for 10% off.
Waverly Hills Tour
Lots of ghost tours explore beautiful areas, so that you can appreciate the scenery while hearing ghost stories. But what if you don't care about scenery and just want spine-tingling horror? Enter Waverly Hills, Louisville's most haunted attraction – and one of the most haunted buildings in the entire country.
Waverly Hills was a tuberculosis sanatorium. And there is no question about how haunted it is: so many people died here that they literally had a body chute to efficiently dispose of the deceased. Yeah. Morbid.
If you dare, you can go on a guided tour of Waverly Hills, a tour that focuses more on the history, or a 6 hour long paranormal investigation. Heck, if you're really feeling brave, you can spend the night there, too. Count us out, though.
Distillery & Bourbon Tours in Louisville
Did you know that there are a bunch of awesome distilleries right in the heart of Louisville? Yep, you don't have to go anywhere to taste bourbon, rye whiskey, brandy, or gin. We have it all!
Pretty much every distillery in Louisville offers a tour or two, so we're going to summarize a few of our favorites below. We've got a detailed guide to distilleries in Louisville with more!
Bourbon Tours in Louisville
Did you know that there are 8 bourbon distilleries located right in Louisville? We've got a whole guide to distilleries in Louisville, but here are a few of our favorites to tour:
- Angel's Envy Distillery: NuLu's premiere bourbon distillery is absolutely gorgeous, and a tour is well worth it (especially if you tack it on after a NuLu food tour, which ends a block away!) The Angel's Envy Signature Tour offers an hour-long deep-dive into the distillery's history to learn about the distilling process from start to finish. The tour concludes with a tasting of the Angel's Envy Bourbon Finished in Port Casks and Rye Finished in Caribbean Rum Casks. If you want to get a little more hands on, check out the Bottle Your Own Tour,
- Michter's Distillery At the Michter's "micro distillery" located in the historic Fort Nelson Building on Museum Row, you can take the Discovery Tour, which offers a brief one-hour overview of the Michter's distilling, barreling, and the extra steps they take to pursue their goal of making the "greatest American whiskey". The tour concludes with a tasting of five Michter's expressions.
- Rabbit Hole Distillery: During the one-hour, immersive guided tour of this contemporary, industrial-chic distillery in NuLu, you'll learn about how grains are transformed into whiskey, how Rabbit Hole's philosophy is changing the bourbon industry, taste a 4-grain Kentucky Straight Bourbon, and end at the Overlook lounge for a generous bourbon tasting with a view.
Copper & Kings Distillery
Guess what, y'all? There's more than just bourbon distilleries in Louisville! The Butchertown-based Copper & Kings Distillery produces brandy, absinthe, gin, and a variety of liqueurs, all made from American-grown grapes and apples.
The one-hour Copper & Kings Experience will show you how their spirits are made with a tasting experience where you will sample from their core portfolio of innovative spirits including American Brandy, Gin, Absinthe & Liqueurs. Or, try the Barrel-to-Bottle Experience where you'll sample the full lineup of cask-strength, limited release spirits and dive into the science and the art of barrel aging while tasting the diverse flavor profiles of unique barrels and finishes. Following the tasting, you can fill your own selection straight from the barrel for a souvenir bottle to take home with you!
Kentucky Bourbon Trail Tours
While not technically *in* Louisville, Louisville makes a fantastic jumping-off point to explore bourbon distilleries along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Yep, that means you can taste bourbon without having to worry about the logistics of safely navigating those winding backcountry roads!
On this bourbon trail tour, you'll meet in downtown Louisville (or get a pickup from your hotel) and get to p...
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