Bourbon, Bluegrass & the Smoky Mountains

Fly from the UK to Cincinatti (Northern Kentucky Airport), pick-up your car and head south through northen Kentucky to Louisville

Settle into The Grady and spend your days soaking up the city's bourbon heritage on Whiskey Row, where the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience reveals the story of Kentucky's spirit before you savour a tasting of your own. Make time for the iconic twin spires of Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum, watch bats being crafted at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, and stroll across the Big Four Bridge as the sun sets over the Ohio River. As evening falls, the warm scent of charred oak and caramel drifts from the old barrel houses.

The road to Lexington carries you deep into bluegrass country, past rickhouses and rolling hills, with celebrated distilleries such as Buffalo Trace and Woodford Reserve tempting you to linger along the way. Known as the horse capital of the world, Lexington is a place of white-fenced paddocks and quiet elegance, and on a Kentucky Horse Farms Tour you step behind the scenes to meet the champion thoroughbreds raised on its rich pastures. Spend your afternoons at the Kentucky Horse Park, feel the thrill of race day at historic Keeneland in spring or autumn, or simply unwind in the Southern charm of The Campbell House. 

As the pastures fall behind, the road begins to climb and the forested peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains rise into view, wrapped in the soft blue haze that gives them their name. Make your home at the riverside Historic Rocky Waters Inn in Gatlinburg, on the doorstep of America's most visited national park, and venture into hidden corners of the mountains on a guided 4x4 Jeep adventure. Look out for black bears and white-tailed deer in the meadows of Cades Cove, follow the tumbling streams of the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail and gaze across endless ridgelines from Newfound Gap and Kuwohi, then return to town to ride above the treetops at Anakeesta, sip moonshine on the Parkway or spend a day at Dollywood.

Leave the mountains behind by way of Sevierville, Dolly Parton's hometown, where you can pause for a photo with her bronze statue on the courthouse lawn before following the road west to Nashville, where the music starts the moment you arrive. Check in to The Noelle, a beautifully restored Art Deco landmark in the heart of the city, then step inside the Country Music Hall of Fame and the legendary RCA Studio B, where Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton recorded some of their greatest hits. As night falls, let the sound of live music guide you along Lower Broadway, where every honky-tonk door spills out another song.

Fly back to the UK from Nashville Airport