Hotels in Louisville

Louisville is Kentucky's bourbon-soaked river city: distillery visitor centres along Whiskey Row, the Muhammad Ali Center, the Louisville Slugger factory, and a genuinely good food scene in NuLu and the Highlands.

Churchill Downs, three miles south of downtown, runs the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May — the most famous two minutes in American sport, and a full-city event: hotel rates triple or worse, minimum stays apply, and rooms go up to a year in advance, so book accordingly or look to houses and suburbs. Outside Derby week it is an affordable, easy city; stay downtown or in NuLu, or in Old Louisville's Victorian streets if you want to walk to the track.