Starting your trip at Owensboro Daviess County Regional Airport in Owensboro means everything around the region sits within an easy drive. Owensboro is a river city on a bend of the Ohio in western Kentucky, famous for bluegrass music and barbecued mutton. The riverfront has been remade with parks, fountains, and a top-notch playground, and downtown hums with live music most nights. It is friendly, unpretentious, and proud of its two great loves: a fiddle tune and a slow-smoked sandwich.

Standout experiences around Owensboro: - Tour the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum on the riverfront - Order chopped mutton and a bowl of burgoo at Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn - Stroll Smothers Park and the Lazy Dayz playground along the Ohio River - Catch the ROMP Festival, four days of bluegrass each June - Eat your way through the International Bar-B-Q Festival in May - Sip bourbon at Green River Distilling, one of the oldest in Kentucky - Walk the paths of the Western Kentucky Botanical Garden

Owensboro makes a fine base for the Ohio River valley. Evansville, Indiana, with its riverfront casino and zoo, is about 45 minutes west, Henderson and the Audubon museum are a half hour away, and Bowling Green with the Corvette Museum is just under two hours south. Louisville is about two hours east. Mutton barbecue is a tradition found almost nowhere else, born from the region's old Catholic church picnics. Come hungry and ready to tap your foot.