Kansas Vacation and Trip Information

America’s Heartland is more than miles and miles of flat, agricultural landscape; the geographical center of the lower 48 states is home to rich American West history. The end of the Civil War ushered in the beginning of the Wild West era, a time when cowtowns boomed and characters like Wild Bill and Wyatt Earp still roamed the range. Kansas is filled with monuments and historical sites devoted to such events and characters.

Start your Kansas adventure in the eastern metropolis of Kansas City, which spills over from neighboring Missouri. While the western two-thirds of Kansas may be as flat as they say it is, the eastern portion of Kansas is lush, hilly and forested and should be explored by car. Interstate 70, which stretches from Maryland to Utah, runs right through Kansas and has a host of attractions for road trippers.

However, if you’re an aviation nut, take a short detour out to Wichita, Kansas’ largest city, known as “the Air Capital of the World,” for the large number of aerospace firms there. Hutchinson has the second-largest space museum in the world, the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.

It’s impossible to mention Kansas without thinking of Dorothy and her little dog, Toto. In April 2004, a the OZ Museum opened in Wamego, an hour outside of Topeka, the state’s capital. On top of being filled with memorabilia from the 1939 MGM movie, the museum features a recreation of Dorothy’s farmhouse for visitors to explore.