The Informed Traveler
The Informed Traveler
On Location in Louisville, Kentucky
Last week we continued our road trip from Louisiana to Louisville, Kentucky. We spent 3 days in Louisville to attend the Travel South USA Global Week Conference. While we were there we got to experience the culture, music and food Louisville has to offer. Plus, sample lots of bourbon. So in this week's podcast we'll share with you the conversations we had with Travel South USA, Kentucky Tourism, Louisville Tourism and the Waterfront Botanical Gardens.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05:Hello and welcome to the Informed Traveler Podcast, a weekly travel podcast where our goal is to help you become a more informed traveler. And I'm your host, Randy Sharman. If you recall, last week we were in southwest Louisiana enjoying the vibrant culture, the fantastic cuisine, the lively music, and of course, the southern hospitality. So from Louisiana, we traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to attend the Travel South Global Week Conference. It's a chance to meet up with representatives from the many southern states in attendance at the conference and discuss the highlights that each region has to offer visitors and just like last week I really encourage you to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages to see all the images and video highlights from our time not only in Louisiana last week but also from our visit in Louisville. In all we spent three nights in Louisville and while we were there we were treated to a city tour to get an overview of what the city is about but we also got a preview of some of new and coming soon attractions to Louisville. So in our podcast this week we'll share some of the conversations we had with representatives from Travel South USA, Kentucky Tourism and Louisville itself. Our first conversation to share with you is with Liz Bittner. She's the president and CEO of Travel South USA and she explains what Travel South is all about, who their members are and their purpose. So here is that conversation for you now. What is Travel South? What's the mandates. How did it begin for one?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so thanks for asking that story, that question, because it's a great story. So 60 years ago in 1965, a couple of states started having state tourism offices. And they said, we would like to invite Canadians to come visit us. And they ran an ad campaign, invited some other states together. And the tagline of the organization or the ad was Travel South US And it stuck. And we did it at the very first campaign that we did was for the Canadian Expo.
SPEAKER_05:Nice. And so the mandate, what's it all about? And obviously, you've grown more than two members.
SPEAKER_03:Correct. Yes. Now we're up to 12 state tourism offices. And our mandate is really to collectively market the South to make sure that we have an authentically welcoming and thriving tourism product for both domestic and international audiences.
SPEAKER_05:So who are the 12?
SPEAKER_03:Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
SPEAKER_05:Well done.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_05:Not that you haven't practiced this, you probably say it a million times over and over anyways. Okay, so now we know who it is, what it's all about, and we're down here, we got the opportunity, I did anyways, to Louisiana and what I found is that within the state of Louisiana there's similarities and there's differences and then when I got here I found that there's similarities within all 12 states and I'm going to say music, food, history, culture and then within the boundaries of their individual state, you know what I'm saying? Correct. If you drew a diagram of it, you'd have an overview, and then it would split down and split down and split down.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. So geographically, we're the same size. If you look at those 12 southern states, we are the footprint of continental Europe. So in terms of land mass, that's fairly large, right? And what ties us together beyond our geography are all the things that you just mentioned, our food, and our music and our culture and history and it's all embedded within sort of the hospitality industry. The other side of it is it it regionalized and evolved in different areas. And so we're also fiercely competitive. You know, we're like best of friends and competitive. Who has the best barbecue? Who has the best music? Were you the birthplace of music or was it just really founded there? You know, perfect example of Louisiana, you know, is Swamp Pop more Lafayette area or really was it more a little farther west? I know you went to Lake Charles, you know, Who claims it, right? Was Boudin founded here or was that a little bit west of where Shreveport and Bossier City are? I mean, so, yeah. So competitive but friendly.
SPEAKER_05:And I even found out for another example today that Alabama claims to have the first Mardi Gras. And as soon as you say Mardi Gras, everyone thinks Louisiana.
SPEAKER_03:Right, right. Absolutely, yeah. So yes, Mobile, Alabama had the very first Mardi Gras in 1703. There weren't actually, Louisiana Purchase wasn't even the organization or the state of Louisiana wasn't even a state at that point. So like 15 years before even New Orleans was formed. That being said, it is a celebration of The 12th night, which is 12 nights after Christmas up to Ash Wednesday, Fat Tuesday and then Ash Wednesday, which is a start of Lent. It's based in Catholicism. Certainly, New Orleans is known for its Mardi Gras, but Throughout the state of Louisiana, there are many, many different Mardi Gras parades and balls and costumes, and they have their own cruise, and same with Mobile. You know, very much celebrates it, but each one's a little different, back to that sort of, you know, we're similar, but we're going to, like, tweak it to make our own.
SPEAKER_05:Well, we talked about food, and one of the things I mentioned was music, and that's sort of what you're getting at, too. You get the different music down the Cajun style in Louisiana, and you can move up into Memphis. and all the different areas. So I'm thinking if you wanted to find a festival somewhere, it wouldn't be hard.
SPEAKER_03:No, it wouldn't be hard at all. Actually, we ran a campaign in Australia. It's literally called Where Music Was Born. So in Louisiana, in Alabama, in Mississippi, there are hundreds and hundreds of festivals. And because, again, the genre of American music is so rooted in jazz and rock and roll and blues, And a lot of it, again, embedded within our history and our culture of how those states, you know, what they're... employment was at the time, you know, and the agricultural communities that were raising rice, or in Louisiana, it's very much sugar cane, and you probably saw some of that sugar cane. So the music part of it is fun, and we, you know, and we're also just a fun group, so we really, really like to celebrate things, so we just don't need that big of a reason, and any festival will do.
SPEAKER_05:Well, you are a fun group, I'll give you that, and such a colorful history, sometimes a dark history too, but it's important to learn those things. And again, you've got this kinship of all the states and then the individual pockets of individual historic moments.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. I think, you know, what's the old saying, you know, if you don't understand your history, then you're probably going to repeat it. And so, you know, certainly in the 1950s and the 1960s during the civil rights movement, not only the tagline for U.S. Civil Rights Trail Marketing Alliance, which is one of the offshoots of our organization and a campaign that we run. The fundamental part of that is that not only changed the facing of the education and laws and voting rights for African Americans, obviously, in the 1950s and 60s, it actually changed the world. I mean, a lot of Martin Luther King's teachings are on Gandhi, are on Muhammad Ali, which is one of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail Alliance members here in Louisville, is part of that sort of story storytelling around nonviolent and contesting, again, mostly about laws, voting, schools um and just you know general human rights
SPEAKER_05:exactly so if someone's planning a trip to the south uh i guess the best place would be would be travel south usa.com because you can get an overview of the places you want to go in case you want to cross state line
SPEAKER_03:absolutely yes so our website actually is embedded within the visit usa visit the usa website and um we have probably 80 to 90 different trip ideas there, helping travelers figure out where best to go and all those little hidden gems because what we want you to do is get off the highway. We want you to go and sort of embed within our communities and really meet the people, all think local stuff, stay at local properties, eat at very much local restaurants, understand our food, listen to some great music You know, we have massive venues and obviously great artists in terms of music, Elvis Presley, you know, all the way to Taylor Swift. But then we have so many musicians that they are just gig workers and they make their living off of, you know, people coming on Saturday night and listening and having, you know, a cocktail while you're listening to some great blues or some jazz.
SPEAKER_05:Perfect. Liz Bittner is the president and CEO of Travel Self USA. TravelSouthUSA.com is where you can go to plan your trip. I do appreciate your time, Liz. Thank
SPEAKER_03:you. No, thank you. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_05:Next up is a chat we had with Nancy Turner, Deputy Commissioner with the Kentucky Department of Tourism, who also gives us an overview of what the state of Kentucky can offer visitors when they venture outside the Louisville area. So here's that conversation for you now. Let's talk about the area around Louisville and some of the other areas of Kentucky that excites visitors when they come.
SPEAKER_00:Certainly, Kentucky is... such a diverse state. You've got your flatlands of western Kentucky, your rolling hills of the bluegrass in central Kentucky, and then the Appalachian Mountains in eastern Kentucky. So there's a little something for everyone in terms of geography, culture, food, and adventure.
SPEAKER_05:The food, like what would be like a mainstay of food for the state of Kentucky?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we have our hot brown that was founded in Kentucky. And really, you don't hear or see hot browns on menus outside of Kentucky. We also have grits, which is rather southern. You'll find that throughout the south. Gutter is a dish that is served primarily in Northern Kentucky and Southern Ohio. You don't see that really outside of that area. I'm from a small town outside of Lexington called Winchester, and we're the beer cheese capital of the world. So beer cheese is making its way outside of Kentucky, but that's one of the dishes that you'll see here, as is Kentucky soft drink, ale L8-1, and that is 100 years old this year.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00:It is, of course, native to Kentucky. It's a citrus ginger drink. You can now find it in cracker barrels throughout, I think, 48 states. Otherwise, you're only going to find it in Kentucky and just a little bit of the neighboring states.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, I'm going to ask you a couple of silly questions. Is it Gouda, and what is the brown...
SPEAKER_00:The hot brown.
SPEAKER_05:Hot brown. What are they?
SPEAKER_00:So the hot brown was invented at the Brown Hotel here in Louisville. Okay. And it was traditionally a piece of toast with turkey, country ham, and... Bacon, tomato, and it's smothered in a cheesy bechamel
SPEAKER_05:sauce. Oh, sounds
SPEAKER_00:good. It is delicious. But you eat that and you want to go to sleep quickly. And of course, we haven't talked about bourbon, but...
SPEAKER_05:I was going to get to bourbon. Yes. I was going to get to bourbon. Let's talk about some activities now. I would understand it's kind of like horse country around here, but there's probably other activities too.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yes, we have lots of horses, obviously. Everyone knows about the Kentucky Derby. We also are very famous for our standard bred horses. So we are the standard bred capital of the world also. But other activities in Kentucky, we are widely known for our outdoors. We have the Red River Gorge area that attracts more than a million visitors each year, a lot of natural arches, wonderful hiking. The Daniel Boone National Forest runs through a large portion. So you've got everything from boating on the lakes, fishing, river cruises, just any number of outdoor adventures.
SPEAKER_05:So give me an idea how big of a state is. If I say stayed in Louisville, could I do day trips and visit areas or that's just too much to do?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So Really, if you wanted to do the hub and spoke, you would be best doing that in central Kentucky. It is probably from central Kentucky, three hours to, well, four hours to the east, or four hours to the west, roughly three hours to the east, and that'll get you to Cincinnati, Louisville, and then also down to the Tennessee line.
SPEAKER_05:Nice. Okay. Bourbon. I've saved the best for last.
SPEAKER_00:Bourbon. You know, I had the pleasure of being with Fred Ngo, who is the master distiller at Jim Beam. And he was talking about in the 1970s when his family was producing Jim Beam, it was difficult for them to sell the product. So they started selling it in collectible crocks that might be shaped like cars or race horses and so the Crocs were what was selling the product and you turn forward to the early 2000s when the Kentucky Bourbon Trail started and you could really first visit distilleries for the first time and that has attracted visitors from all over the world. There are literally more bourbon barrels in Kentucky than there are people, so that's quite the testament.
SPEAKER_05:Do you have a favorite?
SPEAKER_00:I'm very partial to Maker's Mark. I think the story behind Maker's, their hand-dipped bottle makes that very unique amongst the other bourbons and I just really like that flavor.
SPEAKER_05:Well there's no shortage of finding a bourbon distillery or a tour or anything like that around here. You can Go anywhere and find it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, you can. You don't have to look very far. And we're seeing more and more craft breweries, or excuse me, distilleries that are popping up every day. So it's really fun to see the diversity of that product.
SPEAKER_05:Well, it was a pleasure chatting with you. Nancy Turner is the Deputy Commissioner, Kentucky Department of Tourism, KentuckyTourism.com is where you can find lots of info on Kentucky. Thank you for taking the time.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. It's a pleasure. I hope you've enjoyed your visit.
SPEAKER_05:As I mentioned at the beginning, while we were in Louisville, we spent a day touring around the city, getting to know the area and getting a preview of some of the new and coming soon attractions. Our gracious and knowledgeable tour guide was Jordan Skora, marketing and communications manager with Louisville Tourism. And after our tour, I sat down with Jordan to learn more about the activities and sites of Louisville. Their website, by the way, to learn more is gotolouisville.com. We did a tour of Louisville, and the one thing I got was all the historic buildings. And I know that when we were walking around, I mentioned that. You said, well, we're better than some cities and not as good as others, but I think you do a pretty good job of keeping those historic buildings in working order.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, with Louisville being the size that it is as a community, especially recently, we've made a concerted effort to really make sure that we keep the historic buildings that we have and put a lot of thought and effort into how we renovate those spaces and places. And, you know, a lot of the tourist attractions and places that people want to come visit are in some of those historic locations. So the Seelbach Hotel, which a lot of people know is the place that F. Scott Fitzgerald visited when he was writing The Great Gatsby. The Brown Hotel, which is over 100 years old and the birthplace of our official dish. The Hot Brown are just two good examples of places that a visitor might come to and are both beautiful properties and historic places.
SPEAKER_05:And, well, three things come to mind when it comes to attractions. Muhammad Ali, the Louisville Slugger, and Kentucky Derby. But there's way more than that, but comment on those three attractions.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we call those our trifecta of sporting attractions because while they all involve sports in some form or fashion, boxing, baseball, and horse racing, they also have a lot of history tied to them. So obviously Muhammad Ali, born and raised in Louisville, won a gold medal as an 18-year-old at the Rome Olympics and came back and had some struggles as an African-American man in the South, as many did in the 60s. And the museum talks about not only his boxing career, but his kind of civil rights struggles and triumphs and his input and how he helped a lot of communities overcome that time period. So it's a great museum. It's a lot more than just boxing. Louis Slugger Museum and Factory, you can't miss it. It's got the world's largest base baseball bat out front. And Louisville Sluggers have been made in Louisville for over 150 years. And so again, you don't necessarily have to be a baseball fan to appreciate it. There's the craftsmanship that goes into making the bats from the tree to the home plate and the people who make those. And so they talk a lot about history of baseball, but it's part of kind of the culture of Louisville and the fabric of the community because it's been around for so long. And of course, you can't talk about Louisville without talking about the Kentucky Derby. And that is more than just a two minute horse race. We celebrate for a month leading up to the first Saturday in May. And that's been around for 151 years. So it's the longest continuously run sporting event in North America. It's never missed a year since 1875. Even through COVID and wars, they've always at least run the race, whether spectators were allowed or not. So if you can't make it to the Derby, which not everyone can because it's one day a year, they racehorses at Churchill Downs, which is a national historic landmark about six months out of the year, April through June, half of September, and all of November. And so you can really have a Kentucky Derby experience without having to pay the cost of a Kentucky Derby ticket. And then also there's the Kentucky Derby Museum, which just highlights the history and culture of the event. And they do food there. You can get a mint julep. They talk about the fashion and the hats and the revelry and the parties and the people that make the race so great and historic. And so it's just a great way to feel the energy of Derby and kind of see how Louisville fits into all of that.
SPEAKER_05:Well, it must be coming up then if you said it's in May. So everybody's gearing up for it now. Is that the sense in the people that are in the tourism industry here?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, there's a kind of a phrase, especially if there's a new build or if you're trying to accomplish something, like when is it going to open? And it's, we're going to open before Derby. So we are in that season where we're hoping to see a lot of openings, but April is officially May. mint julep month in Louisville. And so a lot of the cocktail bars and distilleries will start serving those mint juleps. The Kentucky Derby Festival has been taking place for over 60 years. And that is just a lot of events that lead up to the horse race. So there's a parade. There's one of the country's largest annual fireworks shows. We all race steamboats. So Louisville has one of the oldest steamboats in the world. And another steamboat will come down from Cincinnati and they'll do a race up and down the river. So the great steamboat race is part of the Kentucky Derby Festival. There's a marathon, there's golfing, so it's just, I think it's 60 plus events leading up to Derby Week. And Derby Week itself has become massive, so opening night this year is the Saturday before Derby, so one week before, and they're celebrating the Great Gatsby as well, so they're doing a Gatsby party for opening night, which if you think of Great Gatsby, you think of great parties, and I think that's what people think of when they think of Derby, so they'll be racing all week, and we're really excited.
SPEAKER_05:Well, it sounds like it. It even if you're not a racing fan just come here just to take in all the atmosphere it must be quite an atmosphere
SPEAKER_06:yeah it's you know just being able to watch um what people have on and what they're wearing. We like to think of it as the world's largest fashion show because 175,000 people come to Churchill Downs and there's different levels of ticketing. So some tickets are what we call in the infield, which is in the inner circle in the track, which is your general admission and you're in a field all day. So you might be wearing overalls or you might be wearing a suit that's cut off into shorts and then you'll have people in Millionaire's Row in the upper levels that have their super fancy hats and their seersucker suits. even if you don't like watching horse racing, you can just watch the fashion show, but also having your mint juleps there and your Kentucky Hot Brown. A bet is as little as$2, so you can place a$2 bet and end up winning hundreds or even thousands. It's always fun to at least be able to cheer on your horse, whether my mom does not know anything about horse racing, but she always wins because she picks either her favorite name or her favorite colors, and you don't have to be an expert to have fun.
SPEAKER_05:No, that's true. You just pick a name or even just close your eyes and put a marker down, and that's who you bet on. And there's also one thing that we've got to talk about, bourbon.
SPEAKER_06:Bourbon, bourbon, bourbon. Bourbon, you know, has been around in Louisville since the late 1700s. We've been distilling whiskey, and it wasn't until recently that it became kind of a tourism draw which is really cool for us because again just like Louisville Slugger and the Kentucky Derby Museum it's kind of been part of our culture and we just never realized that other people would think it was cool and so to see everyone coming here to enjoy it I think is something that you're not going to find at a lot of other tourism experiences because we're really excited to welcome visitors so when people come to talk to bartenders and learn about bourbon we are still excited to share that piece of us with us versus some places that are maybe overcrowded or you know over tourism is involved. But Louisville is the only walkable spirits destination in the entire world. So we're lucky enough to have some of the world's best bourbon distilleries right downtown on Main Street. You can walk to over a half dozen distilleries within a 30 minute walk. And so while places like Napa and the wine region of Italy and Champagne are beautiful, you know, there is they're going to be half an hour, an hour between places. So you can really knock out a lot of bourbon in in one weekend or one trip here. And all the experiences are different. So you can do a distillery tour, you can do a cocktail making class, you can do There's a bourbon soy sauce. You can eat your bourbon. You can do all sorts of things. You don't necessarily have to come and drink the whole time. When you do, you're really just tasting. It's tasting different products and trying to figure out which one you like. Then when you get back home, you can pick your favorite and go from there.
SPEAKER_05:You mentioned that I think it's Main Street or Whiskey Row, not all of them, but a lot of places you can taste bourbon. You're not far from a hotel, so you can You stay right downtown, you get a lot of choices, and you're within walking distance of everything.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I think for a city our size and our population and availability of things, we kind of... punch over our weight when it comes to things to do because the Louisville Slugger Museum, the Fraser History Museum, the Science Center, Muhammad Ali Center, Roots 101 African American History Museum, the Broadway Center, and those seven distilleries are all within a mile and a half on one street. So you could really come here and do a lot of things in one weekend and not have to get an Uber. There's a lot of great hotel product right there on Whiskey Row as well. Especially for someone coming internationally The airport's only 15 minutes away. It's a$15 Uber. So you can do a lot and not have to get in a car. And I think as a traveler myself, that's always something that I look forward to in the city.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Well, me too. Great chatting with you. Thank you so much. Appreciate you doing this, taking the time. Jordan Skora is the Marketing and Communications Manager with Louisville Tourism or Louisville, as I'm learning. Still not very good at it. Go to louisville.com. Go to louisville.com is the website for more information. Appreciate your time, thanks. Yeah, thank you very much. And our final interview to share with you is with Megan Cooper Biebelhauser. She's the Director of Marketing and Communications with the Waterfront Botanical Gardens, which was one of our stops on our tour of coming soon and new attractions in Louisville. She showed us the beautiful new expansion that the Waterfront Botanical Gardens will be building in the coming years. Their website to see it all is waterfrontgardens.org. And here is our conversation now. Thanks for our tour that we just did here. It's an amazing site.
SPEAKER_02:It is. Thank you so much. We are thrilled when we get to have visitors here on site. I was just mentioning we're sometimes called a hidden gem and we don't want to be hidden. We are a gem though. So the more people that can come and visit us, the better.
SPEAKER_05:A gem that is growing. Interesting background and history of how it became. And I know we don't have a whole lot of time. Maybe you give us the Coles Notes version of how it became what it is today.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, absolutely. So back in the 30s, there was an enormous flood that took out the area where our garden is currently located and because of this flood it wiped out the neighborhood that was there and it turned into a dump and so the city said fine it's it's already refuse we'll just use that as our city dump and so for years it operated as the dump and then the highway was built just alongside the dump and unfortunately it was called the gateway to Louisville you've got this dump you're driving into Louisville and now you have a dump right alongside so the city said okay maybe we need to shut down the dump. So at that point, that was in 1969, the dump was shut down and there was a multi-year process to cap the dump. So putting on 25 feet of fill dirt, another additional layers of feet of soil on top of that, and then it just sat unused and unused. And meanwhile, there's a local organization called Botanica that was seeking a location for their future botanical garden because Louisville did not have one. And Botanica landed on this as one of a few different sites and eventually they came to an agreement with the city of Louisville and the city of Louisville said okay if you can raise two million dollars then we will sell you that piece of land it's 23 acres for one dollar and so in 2017 that's exactly what happened botanica had raised this money and so we we officially acquired this dump for one dollar and so you know we that's a big project so we we now have this dump what are we going to do with it and there is a lot of reclamation of the soil and the land that is necessary in order to turn this into a hospitable place for any living being, whether as small as a pill bug, a roly-poly, if you will, or all the way up to we have deer that are on site occasionally, which we also don't love. But in 2019, the gardens officially opened our very first building. And so that was our public opening was in 2019. And that was the Grazer Family Education Center. And from there, we continue to build out the garden spaces. So we have the Bear Grass Creek Pathway was opened in 2019. 2020 and then another large gift was left to us and so in 2021 we built the L&T Leslie classroom building so that's where we host a lot of our educational programs for kids and adults and here we are now it's 2025 so we've been open a little over five years just barely and we've completed phase one of our master plan in 2024 and this year we are embarking on phase two beginning with phase 2a razor family bonsai garden tree alley and bear grass creek pathway
SPEAKER_05:and it is quite quite a work in progress, right? And the future looks very exciting.
SPEAKER_02:It is incredibly exciting. This is a really pivotal moment in our growth because those first few years of development, and especially during the 2020-2021 global pandemic era, that was very challenging for us. So we're now moving into the next phase of development. And being able to show this progress and this growth is incredibly important, not only to our community, but to our supporters that have been there with us from the beginning. I mean, those individuals that helped select this site as the future location of the Botanical Gardens, they get to see all of this progress. And so we are inviting as many people to come and support us and be a part of this journey because if you see it now, you get to be a part of this excitement and the building of our next phase, which we have a four-phase master plan. So there's so much more to come in the future years, but right now is incredibly exciting
SPEAKER_05:for us. And it is open now. People can come see it now. imagine because it's a botanical garden and things grow, it's different now than versus it would be a few months from now for the fall and those types of things.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, our horticulture team is tremendous at making sure that there is seasonal interest all year round. So right now we're seeing daffodils that are popping up. So we have these pops of yellow, we have tulips that are popping up, hyacinth that are popping up. But then in the winter seasons, things that might not be so much of interest to the average gardener, we have some plants where the stems and the twigs of the branches, they're bright red and they're bright yellow. And so when it's snowy outside, those are colors that are popping against the background. And so the horticulture team is very intentional about their plant selection, not only for our area and our region to make sure that they can grow and they can thrive here, but so that there's something to see no matter what time of year you are here.
SPEAKER_05:And a nice thing about it, it's like a donation to enter. So there's no specific cost. or anything like that. And what's the time commitment? Like you can kind of take your own pace going through the gardens, right?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. It's very self-guided. So yes, right now we are currently free to visit. We are still very small. We look forward to opening the future Japanese garden and bonsai display garden, at which point there will be an admission fee. But right now, come and visit. It's completely at your own pace. We are ADA accessible, so you can take a wheelchair up and down any of our spaces I would say, you know, the average person, if they come and wander and stroll for a little while, you've got about 45 minutes. So it's a really nice stop on many other visits that you might have here in Louisville. If you're doing the Bourbon Trail or you're going to a soccer game at the Lucides Stadium, come here and enjoy the great outdoors for a little while. Take in some peace of nature, listen to the birds. You'll get a little bit of our urban highway noise as well, but that's a part of the experience.
SPEAKER_05:And there's volunteers here too. can answer questions if you are kind of a semi gardener or a thing you want to maybe grow some of the things yourself
SPEAKER_02:absolutely so we have a team of about 300 volunteers that support us in many different areas but we have garden guides that station themselves on the gardens plaza to interact with our guests answer any of the questions that you might have and and they're fantastic and they're probably more well-versed and the things that are growing in the gardens than I am even as an employee because they are out here engaging with guests and answering those important questions.
SPEAKER_05:So what's the timeline for when it's all said and done?
SPEAKER_02:All said and done. That, if I had a magic eight ball, we could throw a lot of numbers out there. What I can say is for Phase 2A, we're looking at the next 18 to 24 months for that to be completed. The full Phase 2, that's probably going to take about five years, if not longer. Given that we have a four-phase master plan and a lot of fundraising to do in the interim, we are looking at you know a few decades of time and that is not uncommon it sounds like a long time if you're not involved in the botanical garden community but but in order for a plant to grow and a space to thrive you absolutely need that time to allow things to be established and for the planning and everything is very intentional and well thought out so it is not uncommon for a brand new botanical garden to take 20 plus years to to reach its full potential
SPEAKER_05:a work in progress uh the waterfront botanical Gardens, Megan Cooper Biebelhauser, Director of Marketing and Communications. The website, you can check it all out, waterfrontgardens.org. Thank you so much for your time, Megan.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much. Glad to have you.
SPEAKER_05:And that wraps up our three-day visit in Louisville, Kentucky. Once again, I invite you to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages to see all the images and video highlights from our time in Louisville. We want to thank our gracious hosts as well from Louisville Tourism, the State of Kentucky, and Travel South USA. Thanks for listening, travel safe, and be an informed traveler.