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Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum named Best Alabama Attraction!

USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park takes runner-up spot

There's a lot to love about Sweet Home Alabama, from its antebellum homes and historic neighborhoods to its powdery white sand shores. History suffuses every corner of the state – visitors can explore Mississippian mound cities or walk in the footsteps of some of the greatest leaders of the American Civil Rights movement – while modern Alabama might surprise you with its sophisticated art, food and culture. We asked a panel of Alabama travel writers and photographers to nominate their favorite attractions in the state, and for the past four weeks, 10Best readers have been voting for their favorites. 

  • Vulcan Park & Museum
    Birmingham

    Vulcan, standing tall over Birmingham, is the world's largest cast iron statue at 56 feet tall. Made from some 100,000 pounds of metal to showcase the local iron industry at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, the statue overlooking the city from Red Mountain depicts the Roman god of fire and the forge.
    Photo courtesy of Rain0975 / Flickr

  • Alabama's Gulf Coast

    From Mobile to Dauphin Island, the gulf coast of Alabama is lined with sugar white sand beaches and gentle, turquoise gulf waters, beckoning visitors to swim, sun, fish or birdwatch.
    Photo courtesy of Alabama Tourism Department

  • U.S. Space & Rocket Center
    Huntsville

    Huntsville's U.S. Space & Rocket Center celebrates our nation's space program through artifacts, hands-on exhibits, simulators and theaters. The museum is home to one of only three authentic Saturn moon rockets in the world and hosts week-long space, aviation and robotics camps for kids.
    Photo courtesy of U.S. Space & Rocket Center

  • Little River Canyon National Preserve
    Fort Payne

    Much of the Little River's length is along the top of Alabama's Lookout Mountain, and its waterfalls, bluffs, pools and cliffs create a playground for outdoor activity in the Southern Appalachians. 
    Photo courtesy of Alabama Tourism Department

  • Dexter Parsonage Museum
    Montgomery

    For six years, the building that currently houses the Dexter Parsonage Museum served as the home of Martin Luther King and his family. The parsonage was the home to 12 Baptist pastors, before it was turned into a memorial and museum. Also on site: the Interpretive Center, where you can see videos, photos and discussions related to MLK and the 12 Dexter pastors, and the King-Johns Garden for Reflection, with its circle pathway that represents unity. The parsonage even contains authentic furniture that King himself is said to have used.
    Photo courtesy of Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Convention & Visitor Bureau

  • Alabama Shakespeare Festival
    Montgomery

    Montgomery's Alabama Shakespeare Festival serves as Alabama's state theater that hosts around 10 productions each season (including two by Shakespeare). It's the largest professional theater in the state and one of the largest Shakespeare festivals in the world.
    Photo courtesy of Alabama Tourism Department

  • Bellingrath Gardens & Home
    Theodore

    Covering 900 acres along the Fowl River, Bellingrath Gardens & Home includes 65 colorful cultivated acres where there's always something in bloom, no matter the time of year. Highlights of the garden include 400 varieties of camellias in winter, colorful azaleas throughout the garden in spring, roses and hydrangeas in summer and cascading chrysanthemums in autumn.
    Photo courtesy of Bellingrath Gardens and Home

  • Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail

    Alabama is home to the largest golf course construction project in history, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. This series of 26 courses and 468 holes at 11 sites throughout the state. Tee locations are pegged to ability level rather than age or gender.
    Photo courtesy of Alabama Tourism Department

  • USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park
    Mobile

    Visitors to the USS ALABAMA Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile can not only tour the park's namesake battleship and National Historic Landmark, they can also tour the USS Drum, a submarine that patrolled from Pearl Harbor during WWII. Both vessels are open for self-guided tours, and the park also has on display a collection of 25 military aircraft.
    Photo courtesy of USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park

  • Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum
    Birmingham

    More than a quarter million people pass through the doors of the Barber Motorsports Museum each year to enjoy the collection of some 1,600 vintage motorcycles, of which around 890 are on display at any given time. The collection includes 113 Harley-Davidsons and 55 vintage Lotus cars.
    Photo courtesy of Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum

The top 10 winners in the category Best Alabama Attraction are as follows:

  1. Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum - Birmingham
  2. USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park - Mobile
  3. Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail
  4. Bellingrath Gardens & Home - Theodore
  5. Alabama Shakespeare Festival - Montgomery
  6. Dexter Parsonage Museum - Montgomery
  7. Little River Canyon National Preserve - Fort Payne
  8. U.S. Space & Rocket Center - Huntsville
  9. Alabama's Gulf Coast
  10. Vulcan Park & Museum - Birmingham

A panel of experts partnered with 10Best editors to picked the initial 20 nominees, and the top 10 winners were determined by popular vote. Experts Larry Bleiberg (LarryBleiberg.com), Lynn Grisard Fullman, Cory Lee (CurbFreeWithCoryLee.com), Art Meripol and Connie Pearson (www.theregoesconnie.com) were chosen based on their knowledge and experience of travel in Alabama.

Congratulations to all these winning attractions.

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AlertThe Experts

Larry Bleiberg

Larry Bleiberg

Larry Bleiberg, a veteran journalist with magazine, newspaper and web experience and a member of the Society of American Travel Writers, has spent much of his career living in, and writing about, the South. The Virginia native is former travel editor of the Dallas Morning News and Coastal Living magazine and founder of CivilRightsTravel.com. He served on a Pulitzer Prize team, is a seven-time Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award winner, and was honored for producing the best newspaper travel section in North America. Learn more at LarryBleiberg.com or facebook.com/larry.bleiberg.

Lynn Grisard Fullman

Lynn Grisard Fullman

An award-winning writer, Lynn Grisard Fullman has contributed to newspapers, magazines and blogs. Among her half dozen books are several on travel in Alabama. Twice she received the Alabama Tourism Department’s Tourism Advocate Award: Media and once, the Southeast Tourism Society’s Travel Writer of the Year award. A native of Chattanooga, Tenn., she moved to Alabama as soon as she could, graduating from Samford University and thereafter making her home in Birmingham. Follow her on Twitter. 

Cory Lee

Cory Lee

Cory Lee was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy at the age of two, but that certainly has not diminished his desire to travel – wheelchair and all. He has traversed six continents and blogs about his accessible (and sometimes not so accessible) travel adventures on CurbFreeWithCoryLee.com. From trekking through the Amazon Rainforest to hot air ballooning over the deserts of Israel and everything in between, Cory shows that anything is possible with enough determination. Since starting his blog in 2013, he has gained more than 50,000 followers across social media, won the 2017 Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Blog, and is a proud member of the Society of American Travel Writers. Cory hopes to inspire others to break out of their comfort zones and start rolling around the world.

Art Meripol

Art Meripol

Art Meripol is a Birmingham-based freelance photographer where he worked at Southern Living as Senior Travel Photographer for almost 25 years photographing the best of the South. Two recent projects included the tasty book Alabama Barbecue-Delicious Road Trips and a National Addy award winning book What Happened Here Changed the World. That book, documenting historic civil rights sites across the South, was recently presented to the board of UNESCO with the aim of gaining World Heritage Site designation. Art also just completed additional photography for the new U. S. Civil Rights Trail that officially launches in 2018. He is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers.

Connie Pearson

Connie Pearson

Connie Pearson is a native Alabamian, a former music teacher in North Alabama and a Baptist missionary in Ecuador. Currently, she is a grandmother of 13 and a food/travel writer living in Hartselle, Ala.  Connie is a regular contributor to numerous print and online publications in addition to her own blog www.theregoesconnie.com. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.