Eastern Kentucky

I will be staying in Berea for a program but have 1 1/2 days on my own. I%26#39;m going on a horse farm tour one AM but really want to see Eastern Kentucky since this may be my one and only trip to Kentucky!

I%26#39;ve read about the Mine Portal Number 31 tour and Mountain Homeplace. Another member of the forum suggested Butcher Holler.

Is this a practical day trip from Berea? Any thoughts on those tours?

Eastern Kentucky

I live in Harlan, Co. which is where the Portal 31 is located and I don%26#39;t think that it has been completed yet. However, if you are interested in seeing the mountains and the mining side of things, come on down! It would take you close to 2.5 hours to get from Berea to Benham, but if you have 1.5 days, you could make an interesting tour out of it by stopping in Corbin and seeing Cumberland Falls and then coming on to Harlan Co. and visiting Kingdom Come State Park, driving to the top of Black Mountain (the highest peak in KY), and visiting the Kentucky Coal MIning Museum in Benham. At one point, Benham was the largest coal camp in the world and they have done a nice job of preserving much of their past. If you have time to spend the night, you could stay at the Benham School House Inn, an old school that has been converted into a B%26amp;B type of inn. At any rate, I noticed on another thread that you were interested in ';hollers'; and you will definitely be up in a holler if you go to Benham, so you could kill a couple of birds with one trip!

http://www.benhamky.org/Museum/

Eastern Kentucky

Thank you for your response, KY Betsey!

I will just have 12-6PM to visit the area. Will I see hollers in Hazard? That town was suggested to me as a closer destination to Berea. I%26#39;ll be driving solo so I don%26#39;t want to go extremely far.

Hmmm...12-6, including drive time? If that%26#39;s all you have, I don%26#39;t know that I would even attempt to venture over into Eastern KY. Hazard is almost as far from Berea as Harlan. I would allow 1.5 to 2 hours one way. If you only have 6 hours, you will spend almost four of them driving and only have two hours at your destination. You can see hollers in Hazard, but a holler isn%26#39;t really something exciting to look at...it%26#39;s basically just a little windy road that goes back into the mountains. Usually there is enough flat land in a holler that there are houses or small communities built in it. They are basically roads to nowhere.

If your 12-6 timeframe includes your travel time, then I think I would chose a destination closer to Berea. Cumberland Falls is only about an hour away from Berea and it is a lovely area to explore. http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/resortparks/cf/

Thanks for the advice. I%26#39;ll keep working on my itinerary!