Kansas Travel Guide
Tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Kansas's soul is the tallgrass prairie: the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve protects 11,000 acres of what once covered 170 million. The Flint Hills' spring burns and the Konza Prairie's bison herds are the essential prairie experiences.
Hutchinson's Cosmosphere holds one of the world's great space-artifact collections (Apollo 13's Odyssey included). Dodge City keeps the Old West alive; Liberal's Dorothy's House leans into Oz.
Destinations in Kansas
Tallgrass Prairie National PreserveBison, spring burns and the 1881 ranch house.
Cosmosphere, HutchinsonApollo 13's Odyssey, a flown V-2, the planetarium.- Monument RocksThe chalk pyramids rising from the plains.
- Eisenhower Library, AbileneThe presidential library and boyhood home.
- Cheyenne BottomsThe great migratory-bird wetland; 45% of North America's shorebirds.
- Dodge CityBoot Hill, the Long Branch Saloon show, the rodeo.
Hover a state to explore it. Click a city pin to open its guide.
Top Cities & towns in Kansas
Regional food
- Burnt ends (Kansas City's gift, on both sides of the state line)
- Bierocks (the Volga German meat-and-cabbage pastry)
- Chili and cinnamon rolls (the Kansas school-lunch pairing)
Getting there
Kansas City (MCI) and Wichita (ICT) are the gateways. The prairie preserves are drives from either; the Cosmosphere is an hour from Wichita.