A Perfect Weekend in Cincy + Northern KYCincinnati is a large city that spills over from Ohio into Northern Kentucky—it's also a vibrant hub of culture, art, breweries, great food and, of course, distilleries. Here's how to spend a long weekend in Cincy and Northern Kentucky. #VisitCincy #VisitKY #nationalplanforvacationdayAuthorslunaticatlarge
DestinationsCincinnatiItinerary

Where to Stay

21c Museum Hotel Cincinnati
Centrally located off of East 6th Street, one of downtown Cincy's major thoroughfares, 21c is easibly walkable to much of the city, including Findlay Market and the trendy Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. Not only are all the common areas works of art, but so are the rooms, and the downstairs levels feature art galleries with exhibits that rotate annually.
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Pickle Factory Boutique Hotel
An Airbnb-style boutique hotel, this downtown Covington lodging option occupies a former pickle factory. With remote check-in and themed suites, it's the perfect place to launch your Northern Kentucky adventures (and, bonus, it's got a distillery right next door!).
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Hotel Covington
Walkable to downtown Cincy and positioned right along Covington's main retail and dining boulevard, Hotel Covington is an upscale boutique hotel with superb on-site food and drink options.
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The Swing House
What started as an exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center is now a short-term rental that allows guests from all over the world to enjoy artist Mark deJong’s ingenuity. De Jong removed the interior walls and upper floors from this freestanding, 1880s, three-story brick home and built a 30-foot swing right in the middle of the open floor plan, made from pine and attached by natural-fiber rope to a metal beam on the ceiling. It’s truly innovative and not to mention fun.
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Day 1

Mom 'n 'em Coffee
One of Cincy's famed coffee roasters, Mom 'n 'em is a great place to stop for breakfast in a whimsical atmosphere before continuing onto your first culturarl stop of the day.l
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American Sign Museum
The American Sign Museum is a journey through the 100 years of American culture and preservation via signage of all styles, era and medium—20,000 square feet of everything from McDonald’s to Rock City signs. The museum also offers weekday tours where visitors can observe Neonworks, Cincinnati’s only full-time neon shop, make signs via neon tube bending.
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Cincinnati Museum Center
Occupying Cincy's former train terminal at Union Station, the building today is a sprawl of museum space comprising five different organizations: Cincinnati History Museum Museum of Natural History & Science, Robert D. Lindner Family Omnimax Theater, Cincinnati History Library and Archives, and Duke Energy Children's Museum.
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Camp Washington Chili
One thing you absolutely can’t miss is trying true five-way Cincinnati chili, and Camp Washington Chili is our favorite place to taste your first. In operation since 1940, this hotspot has racked up many national accolades, such as one of “The 20 Most Iconic Food Destinations Across America” by Smithsonian Magazine.
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Cincinnati's Original Findlay Market Tour With Tastings
Ohio’s oldest continually operating public market is free to visit and currently operating with one-way traffic for crowd control. With more than 50 full-time merchants and numerous popup businesses throughout the year, there’s plenty to keep you and the kids interested here. The area also boasts dozens of murals, many of them installed at the city-wide BLINK arts festival that takes place every other October.
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Rhinegeist Brewery
Cincy is home to more than 50 breweries, and we love the powerhouse that is Rhinegeist. You'll find Rhinegeist in taprooms across the city, but why not grab a table at the OG headquarters in the Brewery District and sample the goods straight from the source? There's a Mac's Pizza vending machine that dispense wings, pizza and dessert if you get hungry.
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Day 2

Taste of Belgium - Over The Rhine
Belgium waffles are the breakfast item of choice in Cincy, and few places whos off the city's Belgian and German influence than this popular breakfast spot with multiple locations throughout the area.
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Krohn Conservatory
Cincy is full of green space—more than 20,000 acres across 80 parks and 40 nature preserves, in fact—and few places show off quite like Krohn Conservatory, a garden that has been open to the public for nearly a century and was originally dubbed "the Garden of Eden." With more than 3,500 plant species filling it, Krohn is considered one of the country’s largest public greenhouses.
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Contemporary Arts Center (CAC)
The Contemporary Arts Center is Cincy’s first contemporary art museum and one of the oldest contemporary arts institutions in the United States. The Zaha Hadid-designed building—hailed by the New York Times as “the most important American building to be completed since the Cold War”—hosts major exhibits that provoke and educate. This innovative center offers virtual 3D tours of its space and exhibits that you can take from home.
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Smale Riverfront Park
You can walk from downtown Cincinnati across the bridge from Smale Riverfront Park in Covington, Kentucky. Smale hosts concerts and myriad public events, as well as features a promenade, interactive fountains and more.
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Revival Vintage Bottle Shop and Bar
Dusty bottle collector Brad Bonds has built an emporium of vintage spirits that you can sample as you like. When we were there, we tasted our way through 1954 Old Grand Dad bourbon, a 1944 peach liquor, Heaven Hill from 1982, a 1975 Fitzgerald and then toasted the ancients with a 1940s Galliano herbal. Pricing starts at $5 and full bottles are available for purchase.
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The Baker's Table
A French bistro with an ever-changing menu, the Baker’s Table in Newport has an extensive wine list, prix-fixe options and a casual vibe in a historical building. This restaurant is a great place for a date night or simply to meet up with your foodie friends who appreciate a place that uses the whole animal on their menu and sources from respectable farmers.
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Prohibition Bourbon Bar
Attached to the Newberry Brothers Coffee shop, the small, unassuming and incredibly well-stocked Prohibition Bourbon Bar is absolutely bursting at the seams with bourbon and whiskey—in fact, it lays claim to the largest collection of bourbons and ryes in the world.
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Day 3

Roebling Books & Coffee - Covington
What’s better than an independent coffee shops that makes fun specialty drinks like a lavender latte? Why, an independent coffee shop that’s inside an independent bookstore, of course!
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Cedar
Breakfast in Covington at Cedar is a must; the menu is a moving target with interesting mixes of savory and sweet that rotate depending on the chef’s whim and seasonal availability of ingredients. Cozy and swank at the same time, this is a classic and elevated city diner with a bomb brunch. Bubbles, bloodies, spiked coffee and craft cocktails round out the experience. Afterward, you can shop the cute boutiques in Mainstrasse like Handzy Shop + Studio..
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New Riff Distilling
Northern Kentucky is home to the B-Line, which houses numerous distilleries, bars and restaurants with top-notch bourbon lists. One of the biggest and best is New Riff Distilling, which is located right along the riverfront and recently underwent a $3.5 million renovation that added shiny, new features like a rad rooftop bar.
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The Loft at Braxton Brewing Company
For those who prefer beer to bourbon, Covington and the surrounding Northern Kentucky towns brim with great breweries like Braxton Brewing Company, whose Covington location has an enviable rooftop perch that looks out over the downtown.
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