Getting to Bardstown

Most visitors reach Bardstown by car, and most of them come from Louisville: fly into Louisville Muhammad Ali International (SDF), pick up a rental, and you’ll be on Court Square in under an hour. Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport (LEX) is only about 10 minutes farther. From Nashville, Cincinnati or Indianapolis it’s a drive of roughly two and a half to three hours. No trains, buses or airlines serve the town directly, so whichever way you arrive, plan on having a car or a booked driver once you’re here.

Drive times to Bardstown

These are routing estimates from downtown Bardstown with no traffic, so add 10 to 20 percent for real life, and more if you hit Louisville’s rush hour on I-65.

Bardstown runs on Eastern time. If you’re coming from Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago or Memphis you’ll lose an hour on the way in, which matters when you’ve booked a 4 p.m. distillery tour.

Flying in: SDF or LEX?

Louisville (SDF) is the default. It’s the closest commercial airport, the drive is simple, and the route in along KY 245 passes Jim Beam and Bernheim Forest, so you can start touring before you check in. Check the airport’s site for current nonstop routes.

Lexington (LEX) is the smart pick if fares are better or you also want horse country. Blue Grass Airport is about 54 miles away, and the Blue Grass Parkway runs almost door to door. A Lexington arrival also sets up a loop through Versailles, Frankfort and Lawrenceburg on the way.

Cincinnati (CVG) and Nashville (BNA) both sit more than two hours out. They make sense when the fare difference is big or when Bardstown is one stop on a longer road trip.

Every rental counter at these airports will ask where you’re headed. The answer that matters is who drives after the tastings, and that decision is worth making before you land.

The routes in

From Louisville: I-65 and KY 245

Visit Bardstown’s directions from Louisville: take I-65 south about 35 miles to exit 112 (Clermont-Bardstown), turn left onto KY 245 and follow it about 15 miles into Bardstown, turning right at the fourth traffic light onto US 31E. KY 245 is the bourbon road, rolling past the James B. Beam campus and the entrance to Bernheim Forest. The Bardstown from Louisville guide has stops along the way.

From Lexington: the Blue Grass Parkway

Take the Blue Grass Parkway west about 60 miles to exit 25, turn right onto US 150 and drive about 3 miles into town. It’s an easy, low-traffic highway through farm country. See Bardstown from Lexington for detours through Bourbon Country on the way.

From Nashville and the south

Take I-65 north to exit 93 at Elizabethtown, then the Blue Grass Parkway east about 22 miles to exit 21, turn left on US 31E and go about 2 miles. Bardstown from Nashville covers the Lincoln Birthplace and Mammoth Cave as stops en route.

From Cincinnati and Indianapolis

Both drives funnel through Louisville on I-71 or I-65, then follow the Louisville route above. If you’d like to skip Louisville traffic from Cincinnati, a route through Frankfort and the Blue Grass Parkway is worth pricing out on your map app.

The roads that meet in Bardstown

Four highways shape how you’ll move around the region, per the town’s Wikipedia entry:

• US 31E runs north toward Louisville and south to Hodgenville, becoming North Third Street downtown.
• US 62 links Elizabethtown to Bardstown and on to Bloomfield.
• US 150 heads east to Springfield and Danville as Stephen Foster Avenue through downtown.
• The Blue Grass Parkway passes on the edge of town, with exits 21 and 25 serving Bardstown.

KY 245 connects I-65 at Clermont to Bardstown and is the one to remember for bourbon touring.

Stops worth making on the way in

The drive is part of the trip, and each approach has a natural stop.

Coming from Louisville on KY 245, the James B. Beam Distilling Co. campus in Clermont sits about 24 minutes before Bardstown, and Bernheim Forest’s giant sculptures are just down the road, with grounds open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and a recommended $15-per-car admission. Jim Beam paused distilling at its main plant for 2026, but tours, tastings and The Kitchen Table restaurant stay open. The Jim Beam guide has hours.

Coming up from Nashville or Mammoth Cave, detour through Hodgenville for the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace, about 43 minutes from Court Square, then take US 31E north into town.

Coming for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in September without a room in town? The festival sells a $30-a-day shuttle from a Louisville hotel, about an hour each way. It’s a reasonable fallback, but a Bardstown bed is far better if you can get one.

Arriving without a car

Bardstown has no public transit. If you don’t want to drive, book a private tour company that picks up at your Louisville hotel or at the airport. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail’s list of transportation partners includes Kentucky Bourbon Boys, the one partner based in Bardstown. Most scheduled public bourbon tours from Louisville head to Frankfort and Woodford County rather than Bardstown, so you’ll usually need a private or custom booking. The bourbon tours and transportation guide compares them.

Private pilots can use Samuels Field, a general-aviation airport about two nautical miles west of downtown.

Tips for the drive

• Rural roads between distilleries are two-lane, curvy and dark after sunset. Arrive in daylight if you can.
• Deer are common at dawn and dusk in farm country, especially in fall.
• If you are driving from farther than three hours, book your first tour for the afternoon, not the morning.
• Fall weekends bring heavy traffic around the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in mid-September and the Arts & Crafts Festival in October. Leave extra time.
• Planning a Mammoth Cave side trip? The park is on Central time, one hour behind Bardstown, per the National Park Service.

Once you’ve arrived, getting around and parking explains where to leave the car downtown and how to handle distillery days.