Wilderness Road Heritage Highway
Wilderness Road Heritage Highway is a National Scenic Byway in Kentucky. Within Kentucky it covers roughly 95 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along Wilderness Road Heritage Highway with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
The Wilderness Road Heritage Highway is a 94-mile National Scenic Byway in southeastern Kentucky that retraces the path more than 200,000 pioneers followed through the Cumberland Gap. Starting in Middlesboro near the Tennessee border, the route follows KY 229 through Pineville, Barbourville, and London before joining US 25 north through Renfro Valley, known as Kentucky's Country Music Capital for its live radio-style shows running since 1939, and on to the arts town of Berea. The highway leads to Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, a 24,000-acre site protecting the mountain pass Native Americans called the Warriors' Path and Daniel Boone blazed into what became America's first great migration route west, with more than 80 miles of hiking trails and the underground cascades of Gap Cave. Laurel River Lake, reachable from the route, adds boating and fishing to the drive's historical draw.
- ~94 miles, Middlesboro to Berea
- Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
- Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road route
- Renfro Valley, "Kentucky's Country Music Capital"
- Laurel River Lake recreation
Designated for its historic qualities
Plan a drive on Wilderness Road Heritage Highway → Drive this route in Road SortiesTurn-by-turn on iPhone · App Store
Places to stop along Wilderness Road Heritage Highway
Berea
Kentucky's folk arts and crafts capital, where the state Artisan Center sells work by makers from across the state.
Renfro Valley
A country music venue since 1939, home of the long-running Renfro Valley Barn Dance.
WebsiteLevi Jackson Wilderness Road Park
A London park preserving a stretch of the original Wilderness Road and the site of a 1786 massacre of settlers, with a working mill.
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
The notch in the mountains that funneled hundreds of thousands of settlers west; the Pinnacle Overlook looks into three states.
Website
Where to Stay along Wilderness Road Heritage Highway
3 campgrounds and RV parks sit within about 5 miles of Wilderness Road Heritage Highway.
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Photos of Wilderness Road Heritage Highway
What is a National Scenic Byway?
National Scenic Byways are roads recognized at the federal level for at least one outstanding quality — scenic, natural, historic, cultural, archaeological or recreational — that gives travelers a reason to seek them out rather than just pass through.