Summer vacation is almost over, with Topeka-area schools resuming classes in mid-August. But there’s still time to take a quick trip to somewhere within driving distance in Kansas. Following are seven suggested Sunflower State vacation destinations, with each offering various things to do.
Atchison
Travelers looking for something new can visit the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum, which opened last year near Atchison to celebrate the legacy of Atchison native and trailblazing female pilot Amelia Earhart. Tourists may also want to visit the city’s “Amelia Earhart Earthwork” portrait created by crop artist Stan Herd and tour the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum, located in the house where she grew up on a picturesque bluff overlooking the Missouri River.
About 11,000 people live in Atchison, a northeast Kansas city that also offers a historical museum, a railroad museum, agritourism activities, a “river walk” along the Missouri River and chances to see houses that are said to be haunted.
Dodge City
Long after the days of cowboys and gunslingers came to an end, visitors can still enjoy the ambience of the Old West at Dodge City, once known as the “Queen of the Cowtowns.” Western-flavored attractions available in this southwest Kansas city of about 28,000 people include Boot Hill Museum, the Dodge City Trail of Fame and a Gunfighters Wax Museum.
Dodge City also offers Historic Trolley Tours, Boot Hill Casino & Resort, the Kansas Teachers Hall of Fame and a former Santa Fe Railway Depot that has been turned into a theater.
Wichita
Wichita in south-central Kansas is the site of Exploration Place science museum; Botanica Wichita, featuring four gardens and a horticultural library; and the Sedgwick County Zoo, the seventh-largest zoo in the nation. Tanganyika Wildlife Park can be found in nearby Goddard and Field Station: Dinosaurs adventure park is in nearby Derby.
Almost 400,000 people live in Wichita. It’s also the site of the 44-foot-tall Keeper of the Plains sculpture, the Museum of World Treasures, Old Cowtown Museum, Wichita-Sedgwick Country Historical Museum, the Mid-America All-Indian Museum, the Kansas African American Museum, the Old Town Wichita district and the Historic Delano District.
Hutchinson
The Cosmosphere, Hutchinson’s international science education center and space museum, houses the largest collection of Russian space artifacts outside of Moscow and a collection of U.S. space artifacts second to only the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
A city of about 40,000 in south-central Kansas, Hutchinson is also the site of the Reno County Museum,; Dillon Nature Center, the Hutchinson Zoo, Hedrick Exotic Animal Farm and Strataca, a salt mine museum where visitors may go as far as 650 feet beneath the Earth’s surface.
Abilene
The Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home are among attractions at Abilene, a city of about 6,500 people in north-central Kansas that was the hometown of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Tourists can get a taste of the Old West in that city by watching gunfights and can-can dancers on weekends at Old Abilene Town.
Visitors to Abilene may also ride the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad and the oldest known existing operational carousel; view the World’s Largest Belt Buckle and a 28-foot-tall Big Spur; visit Eisenhower Park & Rose Garden; and tour Seelye Mansion, which contains furnishings that were mostly bought at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.
Wilson State Park
Wilson State Park in Russell County in north-central Kansas is considered by many to be Kansas’ most beautiful state park, says the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Visitors may fish in the 9,040-acre Wilson Reservoir, view wildlife in Wilson Wildlife Area, hike on the one-mile Cedar Trail and ride on the 24.5-mile-long Switchgrass Bike Trail.
Wilson State Park is about 10 miles north of Wilson, population 859, where the Wilson After Harvest Czech Festival takes place Friday and Saturday, July 26 and 27. The park is about six miles south of Lucas, population 332, which is the site of S.P. Dinsmoor’s 117-year-old Garden of Eden, the oldest intact folk art environment in the U.S.
Wamego
OZ Museum at Wamego capitalizes on Kansas’ enduring fame as being the home of Dorothy, the central character in the 1900 book and 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz.” The museum houses thousands of artifacts related to both.
A city of about 4,900 people in northeast Kansas, Wamego also offers an outdoor “Yellow Brick Road”; various statues of Dorothy’s dog, Toto, standing throughout the city; Wamego Historical Museum and Prairie Village; Swogger Art Gallery; the limestone Columbian Theatre, built in 1895 and renovated at a cost of $2.5 million in 1994; and a chance to see bison at ranches located 10 miles north and 10 miles south of town.
As reported in the Topeka Capital Journal
