Camping Gems - Places to Go in Kansas

Fort Scott National Historic Site
Promises made and broken! A town attacked at dawn! Soldiers fighting settlers! Each of these stories is a link in the chain of events that encircled Fort Scott from 1842-73. All of the site's structures, its parade ground, and its tallgrass prairie bear witness to this era when the country was forged from a young republic into a united transcontinental nation.

Quivira National Wildlife Refuge
The salt marshes and wetlands of this 22,135-acre refuge house thousands of migratory birds, including sandhill cranes, ducks, geese, and shorebirds. More than 300 species visit the refuge every year.  Look for sandhill cranes, avocets, ibises, and the endangered whooping crane.

Dodge City
Relive the Old West cowboy world of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday in Kansas's Doge City.  When you first mosey into Dodge City, you'll want to stop at the Boot Hill Museum and take a stroll down Old Front Street. Before you leave, buy a ticket for the Dodge City Trolley Tour, which leaves from the Center parking lot, Memorial Weekend through Labor Day (620-225-8186).

Topeka
Head to lively, historic Topeka for some family fun.  Here you can enjoy the Combat Air Museum, the Kansas Museum of History, the Reinisch Rose Gardens, the State Capitol Building, the Topeka Zoo, the Gage Park Complex, and much more.

Flint Hills Scenic Byway
Wildflowers, waving prairie grasses, and charming small towns are all a part of what makes the Flint Hills special.  This romantic get-away spot has soothing vistas, wildlife, and plenty of history. Don't miss the chance to see the prairie stars twinkling at night.

Kansas Wine Country
You may not expect Kansas to produce great wine, but the state actually has a long wine-growing pedigree.  Thanks to family-run farms, Kansas and Missouri produced more than 80% of all American wine in the years leading up to Prohibition.  Today, vineyards are bouncing back, producing celebrated cabernets in the area near Wamego, Lawrence, Leavenworth, Holton, and Eudora.

Abilene
From the Eisenhower Center to the town's historic homes, Abilene is a fun town to explore. See the old-fashioned C.W. Parker carousel, the Greyhound Park, or ride aboard the Abilene and Smoky Valley Railroad.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
Prairies historically covered 400 million acres of North America. This sea of grass stretched from the Rocky Mountains to east of the Mississippi River and from Saskatchewan, south to Texas. Today, most of that prairie land has been plowed under, but you can see a wild piece of it at Tallgrass.