Best Things to Do in Alabama

Alabama is a trip through history, southern culture, and food, with interesting places to visit all over the state. There are also a lot of beautiful natural areas.

Its old towns, like Birmingham and Montgomery, were important places for the Civil Rights Movement. Today, they tell the important story in museums, galleries, and historic districts, which are places where the United States hit a flash point just a few generations ago.

Away from Alabama’s big towns, there are also a lot of things to do in the state’s wild lands and clean coasts. Explore state parks and the Gulf of Mexico to find beautiful places that no one is talking about.

List of Best Things to Do in Alabama:

Ivy Green

Helen Keller grew up in a beautiful house in Tuscumbia called “Ivy Green.” This was where she learned to read and write. Helen lost her hearing and sight at a young age, but she went on to become a famous author and a source of inspiration for many.

She may have had scarlet fever, and Alexander Graham Bell checked on her. Yes, Mr. Bell, the inventor of the telephone, sent her to Anne Sullivan. Anne was a teacher who was 20 years old. She taught Helen for almost 50 years until Helen died.

Helen Keller’s famous childhood home, which was built in 1820, is now open for tours. Find out about her amazing life and books like “The Story of My Life” and “The Miracle Worker.”

Little River Canyon

Little River Canyon is a place to hike, fish, and camp. It has the longest mountaintop river in the United States. The river runs through the Southern Appalachians and is a national park. It has waterfalls, bluffs, and beautiful forested uplands.

In 1992, the Little River Canyon was made a protected area so that it could keep its unique scenery. Over millions of years, Little River has cut into the sandstone, making beautiful rocks that are slowly eroding the flat top of Lookout Mountain.

Around the river, many plant and animal types can’t be found anywhere else in Alabama. All of this is possible on hiking paths and scenic drives that lead to great views and cool places to swim.

Sloss Furnaces

Entrepreneurs and people with big ideas built a new city in central Alabama because the area had a lot of mining resources. In 1871, Birmingham was officially founded, and Colonel James Sloss was one of the first people to live there. His furnaces didn’t start working until 11 years later, in 1882.

Sloss Furnaces became a National Historic Landmark and then a museum after being there for almost 100 years. The blowing engines from 1902 are the oldest things in the museum. There are also two 400-ton blast furnaces.

On a guided walk, you can learn a lot about how technology has changed through the years at the Sloss Furnaces Museum.

Dexter Parsonage Museum

Martin Luther King and his family stayed in the house that is now the Dexter Parsonage Museum. They lived there from 1954 to 1960. Twelve ministers from the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, who were the first people to live in the house, joined him.

Several bombs were dropped on the home, which is now on the Register of Historic Places, during the Civil Rights Movement. In the museum, there are a lot of interesting things about Martin Luther King’s life as a preacher and about the place where he began his work as an activist.

Before going to the King John’s Garden for Reflection, you can also learn about each preacher and the area around the church. There are six main ideas in the garden that preachers and MLK often spoke about.

 Cathedral Caverns State Park

Cathedral Caverns State Park was once called Bat Cave. It has huge caves and one of the biggest columns on Earth. Southeast of Woodville, Alabama, the cave was a private draw for 37 years. In 1987, it became a state park.

Cathedral Caverns is what people call the cave now because of its grand opening. The grand entrance to the cave is the biggest in the state. It is 126 feet wide and 25 feet high. People can explore the beautiful caves and see Goliath, a 45-foot-tall stalagmite tower. You can go beyond the boundaries on a cave tour, and you can also camp out in a tent and look for gems.

Read More: Top Tourist Attractions in Melbourne

 Unclaimed Baggage Center

The Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro is one of the strangest places to visit because it is the only store in the country that sells lost luggage. Even more, reason to come! People often say that someone else’s trash is someone else’s prize.

All of the bags go to the thrift store after 90 days without being picked up by a customer. The Unclaimed Baggage Center then buys these things so we can look at them. Since 1970, when it first opened, the store has seen a lot of strange things. Among these are an Egyptian funeral mask, a firesuit made of aluminum, and a camera from a NASA space program.

 Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge

The Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge was set up in 1980 to protect wildlife and migrating birds. It is on the southern tip of Alabama. In this beautiful part of the state, tourists can find a wide range of habitats, from scrub forests to marshes, swamps, and dunes.

The wildlife reserve is where the endangered Alabama beach mouse lives. It is also an important place for sea turtles to lay their eggs. Every year, over 370 different kinds of birds stop by on their way to other places. Ospreys and hummingbirds are both popular species.

On the one-mile Jeff Friend Trail, you can get a taste of the park before going on one of the half-dozen longer paths. You can launch a boat from Little Lagoon and fish from the water.

National Memorial for Peace & Justice

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is a sad and important place that honors the lives of African Americans who were slaves or were killed by lynching.

It was the first of its kind when it opened in 2018. It is a very important place that has given the Equal Justice Initiative a chance to tell the many untold stories of the American South. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice doesn’t just talk about the people who died, but also about the fear that stayed with the six million people who moved north because of what happened.

A sculpture about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and an interesting piece by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo give people a place to meet and think about the past.

Gulf State Park

Gulf State Park is a beautiful natural area in southeast Alabama that has a lot of things to do. The park is less than an hour from Pensacola, Florida, and has its stretch of golden sand to enjoy.

At the Nature Center, people of all ages will be able to join many organized activities. Rangers and naturalists will take you on a trip down the trails to see local wildlife and even give you some tips on how to catch a fish when you’re out fishing.

Gulf State Park has a lot for the whole family to do, like a big swimming pool, tennis fields, and a horseshoe pit. With a SUP or kayak, you can even go farther out. So you don’t have to drive home, you can stay in a cabin and sleep in the woods.

Battleship USS Alabama

The USS Alabama was a battleship used in the Second World War. It is now a National Historic Landmark in the United States. The ship went on more than a dozen patrols in the Pacific and helped take islands from the Japanese. The USS Alabama also sank 15 Japanese ships.

But a little more than 15 years after World War II, the famous battleship was going to be thrown away. Instead, it ended up in Mobile, where it will stay for good. A submarine from World War II, the USS Drum, is also in the park. Today, you can take a walk off the ship and see what life was like on the USS Alabama, from the mess hall to the captain’s bridge. Several planes, tanks, and weapons are also on display at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

In the 1950s and 1960s, one of the most important places in the Civil Rights Movement was right here in Birmingham. When the Ku Klux Klan bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963, it was one of the most important moments in the campaign.

After those four deaths, President Lyndon Johnson pushed for the Civil Rights Act to be passed the next year, which it was. At the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, you can find out more about this event and the historic struggle. Explore many fixed and temporary exhibits that take you behind the scenes and shed light on problems that people still face today.

The institute is a big part of Birmingham’s Civil Rights District, which also has important places like the Carver Theater and Kelly Ingram Park.

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