Family Friendly Road Trip to Lexington

Has your family been to Lexington, Kentucky?  Since it’s just about an hour away from Cincinnati that makes it a perfect place for a quick road trip for a day or for a long weekend getaway.  Lexington lies in the heart of Horse Country, and is the second largest city in Kentucky.  There’s so much for families to do and see in Lexington, that you could keep the young and old in your family entertained for several days with non stop fun.  Recently my family spent a long weekend in Lexington, and we had a blast. I thought I’d share some ideas for family fun in Lexington with our readers!  It really was a marvelous mini-vacation, without the pain of a long car ride with four kids.  Here’s hoping that this post will help you to plan a fun trip for your family, whether it be for an afternoon of fun or a week long vacation.  And please comment below if we missed something fun for families in this post.  Happy Trip Planning!

Family Friendly Road Trip to Lexington ::

Planning your Trip ~ 

As I mentioned, there’s much to do in Lexington, so you’ll want to spend some time thinking about what your family will enjoy doing before you make your trip.  The best way to start planning your trip is to reach out to the Lexington Visitor’s Center.  They will mail you a complimentary Visitor’s Guide to get you started.  The folks at the Visitor’s Center are quite helpful and really work hard to make sure that visitors enjoy their stay in Lexington.  When you arrive in Lexington you can stop by the Visitor’s Center on Main Street in Downtown Lex to learn more about the region and figure out where to go and what to see while you are in town.  In planning our trip I found the Visitor’s Center to be a great resource!  I also reached out to friends on Facebook and Twitter to ask for dining recommendations.

Where to Stay ~

There are many options for lodging in the Lexington area, and your complimentary Visitor’s Guide would be a great help for finding the perfect place for your family to stay.  We stayed at the Embassy Suites hotel which is on Newtown Pike, just minutes away from Downtown.  Included in your stay at Embassy Suites is a complimentary breakfast and happy hour, which is quite a treat when you are feeding a family of six.  We loved our stay at the Embassy Suites because the suite gave our large family enough room to spread out and have our own space.  The kids loved Embassy Suites because they had a pool and a breakfast buffet, in fact my youngest loved it so much he asked if we could live at the hotel.  My husband I loved the complimentary happy hour each evening, where they served drinks in the gorgeous lobby and also have a snack buffet you can enjoy.  The hotel was beautifully kept, and the staff was wonderful.  They gave us tips on dining, letting us know the best times to go to the restaurants we were heading to, and they even offered to make reservations for us.

 What to Eat ~ 

Three days simply wasn’t enough time to taste all that Lexington has to offer.  We had so many recommendations from friends on where to eat, but we ended up going with some of our old favorites from our college days.  I still have a “bucket list” for places to dine next time we head to Lexington!  As I said before, our breakfasts were complimentary, so we ate at the hotel each morning.  We headed out to eat for lunches and dinners though.  Our first lunch was at West Sixth Brewery where you can order food from Smithtown Seafood (more about this lunch in just a bit).  We stopped at Joe Bologna’s for pizza for our lunch on the second day of our trip, and it was just as great as I remember it from years ago!  It was Henry’s birthday, and he was pretty excited about getting a meatball pizza (his fave) and the older kids thought it was cool to have lunch in an old church.  Day three we had lunch at downtown at Saul Good, and it was a scrumptious meal, we all loved it – and the kids loved that they gave Wiki Stix with the Kid’s Menu to keep the small hands occupied while we waited to dine.  The menu at Saul Good offers some really unique dishes, and that made it hard to decide what to eat.  But after sampling little bits of everyone’s meal I can say it’s “Saul Good” (sorry, couldn’t help myself).   The kids loved their meals, and also gave two thumbs up to our dessert: Chocolate covered popcorn – YUM!

We headed out for dinner a little late in the evening on our first night in Lexington, so we weren’t able to get into some restaurants because of the wait (I refuse to wait for a long time for a table with four kids in tow).  We headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant in town, Rincon Mexicano on Euclid Avenue where there was no wait and the atmosphere is fun and festive.  The meal was very tasty, as was the margarita for Mommy, and the prices were just right.  For dinner the second night we ate at Columbia Steakhouse, which was our favorite place for romantic dates when we were in college.  You can get a great steak and not break the bank.   We definitely enjoyed all of our dining experiences while we were in Lexington, no complaints about any of our meals.  My one complaint is just that there was too little time and too many restaurants.  But as I said, I’ll hit more of them the next time we go to Lexington.  If you have a restaurant recommendation for Lexington please do leave a comment below!

Explorium of Lexington ~

The Explorium is just what the name implies…a place to explore!  This gem of a children’s museum was the perfect place for us to spend an entire afternoon letting the kids work of some energy while they used all of their senses to explore the Explorium from top to bottom.  Since Lexington is known for being in horse country there’s a large room at the Explorium filled with race horse activities for the kids, such as grooming horses, riding horses and other ways to learn about horses in a hands-on manner.  There’s also giant bubbles, a climbing wall, international costumes and homes, a bank, a vet’s office and much much more!  There’s even a space for small children to play and explore without the worry of being over-run by the bigger kids.  The kids wanted to spend every day of our stay at the Explorium, they kept asking to go back after we left.  And quite honestly I had fun there too, watching the kids enjoy themselves.  If you are taking young kids to Lexington I highly recommend a stop at the Explorium.  It’s not quite as big as the Cincinnati Children’s Museum, but they offer many different things than our Children’s Museum, so it was a nice change of scenery and exploration for the munchkins.

 

West Sixth Brewery/Food Chain/Smithtown Seafood ~

We spent an entire afternoon at West Sixth Brewery while we were in Lexington.  It’s a family friendly place to try some great local brews, take a brewery tour, or just hang out and watch a basketball game or play board games.  While you are there, be sure to order lunch from Smithtown Seafood, they will deliver it right to your table at the brewery and their food is fantastic!   Smithtown Seafood and West Sixth are in the same building, as is Food Chain, which is a “nonprofit that provides education and hands-on training for indoor sustainable food production and processing“.   We took the kids on a tour of Food Chain where they saw first hand how aquaponics and indoor food production works.  It was a really cool tour and we learned a lot.  I love that within this building you have West Sixth making beer, and some of the spent grains from that beer is given to Food Chain to feed the tilapia they are raising.  The tilapia is then cooked and served at Smithtown Seafood.  It was a great learning experience for the kids…not to mention a fantastic meal and a fun beer tasting experience for the parents.  We shared food from Smithtown and a flight of beers from West Sixth and it was a perfect lunch.

 A Little Bit of History ~ 

Lexington was founded before Kentucky was even a state, so she’s a grand old city, and full of history.  Abe Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd Lincoln was born and raised in Lexington, and Henry Clay, the great statesman, lived in a gorgeous home in Lexington called Ashland.  We wanted to add just a little bit of historical learning to our trip, so we drove by Ashland at night (and it was snowing, which made for a beautiful sight).  Next time we are in Lexington I hope to take a tour of this gorgeous home.  We also showed the kids where Mary Todd Lincoln was born and raised downtown, and took a drive through the old Lexington Cemetery, getting out to walk around near Henry Clay’s monument to look at the old tombstones and beautiful trees in the cemetery.  When they are a bit older we can add more historical field trips to our visit to Lexington so they can learn more about the culture and heritage of this great city.

More Ways to have Family Fun in Lexington ~ 

Since our mini vacation was only three days long and we did not want to cram our days with adventures (the kids demanded we leave time for pool fun at the hotel) we still have a list of places we want to visit next time we head to Lexington.  I’m sharing that list with you to help you plan your next trip!

 The Kentucky Horse Park ~ I’m saving this adventure for a warmer weekend – maybe we’ll make it a horse-filled weekend and put it together with a trip to Keeneland to watch the horse races and a visit to the Thoroughbred Park downtown.

Aviation Museum of Kentucky at the Blue Grass Airport

Catch a show at the Lexington Children’s Theatre

Hang out at Woodland Park Skate Park if you youngster needs to get out on their skate board – there’s also a playground, tennis courts, basketball courts and a water park at Woodland, so it’s fun for the whole family.

Head to Gattitown for video games, bumper cars, pizza and MORE!

So there you have it, some great ideas for family fun in Lexington, Kentucky.  I know this list is not complete, so if I’ve missed something that you love to do in Lexington please comment below!

Disclosure:  Our hotel stay was complimentary.  Many thanks to the staff at Embassy Suites and our friends at the Visitor’s Center for helping us have such a memorable mini-vacation.  We were also given complimentary passes to visit the Explorium of Lexington, thank you to our friends there for a fun-filled day for the kids!