Day Trips from Birmingham, Alabama

Huntsville is steeped in history from the founding of the Alabama Constitution Village in 1819 through the civil war and 20th-century space race. Also called Rocket City, Huntsville is a great place to take guided walking tours to historical monuments and sites including the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Burritt on the Mountain, Historic Huntsville Depot, and the Weeden House Museum and Garden. Other great attractions in Huntsville include the Earlyworks Children’s Museum, U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum, and Veterans Memorial Park. Huntsville is also a great destination for nature enthusiast and is a hotspot for cave exploration, hiking, biking, boating, and golf.

The Alabama Museum of Natural History has been open for more than 150 years and is dedicated to preserving the long natural history of the state through impressive exhibits, collections, and educational programming.

The museum dives into the ancient past and explores all the way up to the modern era through three stories and multiple wings of the Classical Revival Style massive museum.

You can become immersed in history through The Expedition, which gives students and the general public hands-on experience at an archaeological or paleontology dig site.

The Alabama Museum of Natural History is owned and managed by The University of Alabama along with several other area museums.

427 Sixth Avenue, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, Phone: 205-348-7550

The Chattanooga Zoo in Tennessee is only three hours North of Birmingham and is definitely worth the drive.

The non-profit zoo has a history spanning more than 100 years and has been a favorite Chattanooga attraction for decades that brings in more than 250,000 visits annually.

The zoo is more than 12 acres and features six distinct habitats—Himalayan Passage, Warner Park Ranch, Walking the Tracks, Deserts & Forests, Corcovado Jungle, and Gombe Forest. Chattanooga Zoo also has a Zoo Choo train, carousel, gift shop, camel rides attractions, and Wild Burger restaurant along with concessions. Zoo tours and educational programs are also available.

301 North Holtzclaw Avenue, Chattanooga, TN, 37404, Phone: 423-697-1322

DeSoto Caverns is a family owned family fun park with more than 20 activities for families to enjoy while visiting.

Located less than one hour from Birmingham, the historic caverns were once a settlement for prehistoric Indians, a site for moonshine making, where mining for gunpowder was done by the Confederacy and is now open year-round as a family-friendly destination.

Visitors can camp, visit the gift shop and café, explore the waterfalls and ponds with connecting streams, and take tours of the caverns where the temperature holds steady at 60 degrees Fahrenheit every day of the year.

5181 DeSoto Caverns Parkway, Childersburg, Alabama, 35044, Phone: 256-378-7252

DeSoto State Park is found on the top of Lookout Mountain in Northeastern Alabama and is known for its captivating waterfalls and beautiful vast meadows of wildflowers.

The park was founded in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and is perfect for nature lovers and outdoor adventurers. Visitors can go kayaking, fishing, hiking, rappelling, and rock climbing, mountain biking, walking, and wildlife viewing.

People love to explore the 25 miles of trails, the restaurant, pavilions, playgrounds, public seasonal swimming pool, the nature center, and the Civilian Corps Museum. DeSoto State Park is about two hours from Birmingham, and somewhere you can stay all day.

7104 Desoto Parkway NE, Fort Payne Alabama, 35967, Phone: 256-845-0051

Just a short two-hour drive over the border into Tupelo, Mississippi is the birthplace of American music and rock legend, Elvis Presley.

The Elvis Presley Birthplace features a statue of the singer as an adolescent with his guitar.

Visitors to Tupelo can also visit the church Elvis went to as a child in the 1940s and house he was born in which both sit on the grounds of the Elvis Birthplace Museum.

A paved walkway leads visitors to the picnic pavilion, reflections pond, Overlook Pavilion, Event Lawn, Theatre, Giftshop, and Restrooms. The campus offers RV and Bus parking and provides group tour options.

306 Elvis Presley Drive, Tupelo, MS, 38801, Phone: 662-841-1245

Fairhope, Alabama is a four-hour drive south from Birmingham on the Gulf of Mexico just a few minutes from Orange Beach and Gulf Shores. The resort community was founded in 1908 with just 500 people and featured a beachfront park, a pier more than a quarter mile long, small bluff-top cottages for rent. Visitors can also stay in boutique hotels and visit the Fairhope Museum of History when they aren’t spending time together on one of the sunny beaches. When conditions are just right in Fairhope, a Jubilee Phenomenon occurs which delights fisherman who can catch buckets full of crab in just a few hours.

Just over the Georgia State line and two hours from Birmingham, Alabama is the Georgia Aquarium where tens of thousands of marine species can be seen through some of the largest underwater viewing windows in the world.

Georgia Aquarium is the second biggest aquarium in the world and is a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of ocean species, conservation, and research efforts.

The aquarium is also featured on Animal Planet television series “The Aquarium.”

Georgia Aquarium is open every day, has free Wi-Fi, public charging stations, and an app that guides visitors through the exhibits.

Several dining options are also available so families can visit all day.

225 Baker Street Northwest, Atlanta, GA, Phone: 404-581-4000