Arriving at Barkley Regional Airport in Paducah puts regional highlights within easy reach. Paducah sits at the meeting of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers in far western Kentucky, a river town that reinvented itself as a center for quilting, crafts, and the arts. It is the only city in the U.S. named a UNESCO Creative City for crafts and folk art. Historic brick storefronts, floodwall murals, and a working riverfront give it a warm, creative, small-city feel.

Things to do around Paducah: - Admire the stitching at the National Quilt Museum, the largest of its kind in the world - Walk the Paducah Wall to Wall murals painted along the floodwall - Browse studios and galleries in the LowerTown Arts District - Watch barges and towboats pass from the riverfront at the foot of Broadway - See the Market House Theatre and the historic downtown in a single stroll - Visit the River Discovery Center to learn how the rivers shaped the town - Sample a Hot Brown or a slice of transparent pie, a local sweet

Paducah is the gateway to the Land Between the Lakes, a huge national recreation area about 40 minutes southeast, with Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley for boating, elk and bison viewing, and camping. Metropolis, Illinois, home of a giant Superman statue, is 15 minutes across the river, Carbondale and the Shawnee National Forest are an hour north, and Nashville is about two hours. Each April the AQS QuiltWeek fills town with quilters from around the world. Come for the river, stay for the art.