The Kansas Guide

is your comprehensive travel companion to the Sunflower State. Also popularly known as the American Heartland due to its geographic location in the exact center of the country, Kansas exemplifies the name through its all-American culture. Meals filled with delicious comfort foods, gorgeous state parks, historic sites, and lively arts and entertainment scenes are among the reasons to make Kansas your vacation destination.

Dining

One of the most influential groups in Kansas food history were the German Mennonites. The contributions of German Mennonites included wheat, which grew easily in Kansas' unforgiving soil, as well as a series of dishes, most of them stuffed bread and pastry products. Bubbat, piroshki, beirocks, and German Roulanden are just some of the foods that fall into this category.

Visual Arts

Kansas' visual arts scene includes 14 fine arts museums, such as the Mulvane Art Museum. Not only are visitors wowed by the museum's diverse permanent and rotating exhibits, but they're also given the opportunity to gather hands-on experience in the ArtLab. In the ArtLab, visitors are encouraged to create their own works of art in several different media. To learn about the rest of the state's art museums and other happenings, visit our guide to Kansas Visual Arts.

Planning Your Trip

Feeling overwhelmed with the current influx of travel-related research material? While it's important to take the time to research before making travel plans, the abundance of material to choose from can make it hard to know where to begin. Our Planning Your Trip guide breaks each resource down to help you research more easily and effectively.

Entertainment

Theater:
To add a little culture to your vacation, try an evening out at the theater. In Kansas, theater options run the gamut. You'll find musicals, dinner theater, children's theater, and comedy performed by both professionals and community theater groups. (More... )

Music:
Everyone knows the popular folk tune Home On the Range. What many people don't know is that the song began as a poem written by Kansas resident Brewster Higgly in 1872, and today it's the official state song. Higgly isn't the only important figure in Kansas' musical history. Artists such as Martina McBride and Melissa Etheridge, along with bands Kansas and Puddle of Mudd, are members of the Kansas Music Hall of Fame because of their great contributions in music. (More...)