Australia-Founded Travel Organization and Our Cincinnati Area

Because my homeland is Australia, I was intrigued by a connection between a large travel group—with dozens of travel guidebooks and a major website—and Cincinnati, as the Creation Museum is located in the Greater Cincinnati area.

First, though, you may recall from a blog post I wrote last month that AiG supporters—using social media—made the Creation Museum the number one travel attraction in America that “every kid should see,” according to an online poll at BudgetTravel.com.

Even though it was not a scientific survey, this was remarkable considering that we did not organize any kind of a blitz to get out the vote. We reported on the poll (only after atheists had mounted a campaign to crash it), and our supporters did the rest!

Now that the website has received the nominations and the tallies, editors will be determining the finalists for “The 15 places kids should see before 15.”

We will keep you posted so that you can see if our museum (voted #1) made the top 15 according to the magazine’s website. Interestingly, when going to the article at this link, scroll down to the Creation Museum and then click on the word “comments”—as you do so, notice how many comments the Creation Museum received versus the other top 5 nominees. There was a total of 2,932 comments made for all the attractions, and see what astounding percentage the museum had at this link.

Note: After I had written this blog post and as it was being prepped for publishing, we learned that the museum was not in the final list of the top 15 attractions for the “definitive family vacation.” So I guess our museum, even with the highest number of votes, apparently did not meet the magazine’s “fun and educational” standard and also lacked “thematic diversity” to make the top 15. And it does not, apparently, “represent the best that our nation has to offer our children” (the words in quotes come from the standards that the selection committee was to use). However, a few evolutionary museums did make the list.

Now, back to Australia. We have noted that the website (especially designed for younger travelers—with a bit of an edge and doses of secular humanist views) of the popular Lonely Planet travel books (based in Australia) has picked our Cincinnati area as one of the “top 10 U.S. travel destinations for 2012.” Lonely Planet describes Cincinnati as the “pretty city on the Ohio River” and a city that has “transformed itself in the last decade into a worthy weekend getaway.” See this web page.

As you read this short listing of U.S. travel destinations, you will see why, 18 years ago, we chose this area for the new AiG ministry—and eventually a Creation Museum. This region has not only turned out to be a good place for us to raise our families and build a ministry, but were you aware that almost two thirds of the U.S. population can drive to our Creation Museum in one day (up to 650 miles)? Within 350 miles of us are cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Louisville, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. Within 650 miles of us are cities like New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Memphis, Kansas City, etc.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken