With Explorer’s Guides, expert authors and helpful icons make it easy to locate places of extra value, family-friendly activities, and excellent restaurants and lodgings. Regional and city maps help you get around and What’s Where provides a quick reference on everything from tourist attractions to off-the-beaten-track sites. Along with Amish farms, rolling countryside, and interesting history, Kansas offers rodeos, powwows, pancake races, Renaissance fairs, and spinach festivals. Kansas is known for wheat, cattle, and wide-open spaces, but it also has day spas, boutique hotels, museums, concerts, and vital urban scenes. There’s a lot to see and do here; with an insider guiding you, you can expect extras, like a detailed look at the exciting cultural centers of eastern Kansas, with their fine restaurants, nightlife, and art. There really is no place like Kansas!

Marci Penner and WenDee Rowe hit the road for parts of four years to look in every one of the 626 incorporated towns and cities and in hundreds of other dots on the map and countryside locations. They drove dusty back roads and navigated big-city highways. They looked for architecture, art, commerce, cuisine, customs, geography, history, and people wherever they went. In their trusty Explorer Research Vehicle (lovingly known as ERV), the duo took tens of thousands of photos, traveled tens of thousands of miles, and visited with thousands of people. Five hundred Kansas towns are included in this guide containing entries on the best places to eat (672 restaurants are listed), beautiful scenery, history, customs, architecture, art, and people.

The ultimate guide to Kansas City's food scene provides the inside scoop on the best places to find, enjoy, and celebrate local culinary offerings. Written for residents and visitors alike to find producers and purveyors of tasty local specialties, as well as a rich array of other, indispensable food-related information including: food festivals and culinary events; specialty food shops; farmers’ markets and farm stands; trendy restaurants and time-tested iconic landmarks; and recipes using local ingredients and traditions.

Most visitors know all about Kansas City’s barbecue, jazz, and football success, but there are hidden gems and wild pieces of trivia around every turn in Missouri’s largest city. Is the giant Hereford bull anatomically correct? Can a seed that’s been to outer space still grow into a normal tree? And who really killed President William Henry Harrison? You’ll find answers to the questions you didn’t know you had in Secret Kansas City: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Learn why three completely unrelated groups have chosen Kansas City as the center of the world and the place you want to be when the world ends. Between these covers, you’ll also find castles, a horse buried in a cul-de-sac, a ghost who likes a good laugh, and the world’s longest snake. This is not a tour guide for outsiders; it’s a scavenger hunt—insiders only, please. Longtime Kansas Citian Anne Kniggendorf is at your service to bolster your love and boost your respect for this middle-of-the-map city. With her eye for the odd leading the way, you’ll have a great time discovering Kansas City.

Two decades after its first publication, Roadside Kansas remains the premier guide to the geology, natural resources, landmarks, and landscapes along nine of the Sunflower State's major highways. During that span, however, many aspects of the Kansas landscape changed: the growth of some towns and near disappearance of others, the expansion of highways, the development of industry. Even the rocks themselves changed in places as erosion took its relentless toll. More broadly, there have been changes in the science of geology. This new edition reflects all of these changes and thoroughly updates the previous edition in ways that reinforce its preeminent status. Covering more than 2,600 miles, Buchanan and McCauley organize their book by highway and milepost markers, so that modern-day explorers can follow the road logs easily, learning about the land as they travel through the state. Featuring more than 100 photographs, drawings, and maps, the book also provides deft descriptions of fascinating contemporary and historical features to be seen all across Kansas. Especially in an economic era that has encouraged all of us to travel closer to home, the new edition is sure to be a hit with families from Kansas and the region who decide to explore and learn more about the state and its distinctive wonders. They'll discover what Buchanan and McCauley have known for a long time: Kansas highways provide much more than passage to Colorado or some other state. They are destinations in their own right. Published for the Kansas Geological Survey

Since the last wild bison found refuge on the back of a nickel, the public image of natural Kansas has progressed from Great American Desert to dust bowl to flyover country that has been landscaped, fenced, and farmed. But look a little harder, George Frazier suggests, and you can find the last places where tenacious stretches of prairie, forest, and wetland cheat death and incubate the DNA of lost, wild America. Documenting three years spent roaming the state in search of these hidden treasures, The Last Wild Places of Kansas is Frazier's idiosyncratic and eye-opening travelogue of nature's secret holdouts in the Sunflower State. These are places where extirpated mammalian species are making comebacks; where flying squirrels leap between centuries-old trees lit by the unearthly green glow of foxfire; where cold springs feed ancient watercress pools; where the ice moon paints the Smoky Hills with memories of the buffalo, wolf, and the lonesome rattle of false indigo; where the blue lid of the sky forms a vacuum seal over treeless pastel hills, orange in winter; where bluestem rises. Some are impossible to find on maps. Most are magnificently bereft of anything beneficial to 99.9 percent of modern America. True wildernesses they may not be, but at the correct angle of light, when the wind blows pollen carrying biological memories of the glaciers, these places are a crack between the worlds, portals to the lost buffalo wilderness. En route Frazier takes us from the unexpected wilds of the Kansas City suburbs to the Cimarron National Grassland in the far southwestern corner of the state. He visits ancient springs, shares a beer with prairie dog hunters, and fails in his mission to canoe the upper Marais des Cygnes—a trip that requires permission from every landowner on the route. Along the way we encounter a host of curious characters—ranchers, farmers, Native Americans, explorers, wildlife experts, and outdoor enthusiasts—all fellow travelers in a quest to know, preserve, and share the last wild places of Kansas.

This ¿well-organized¿ (Booklist) and ¿surprisingly versatile¿ (Library Journal) road trip guide features 130 hand-selected sites and battlefields, themed driving tours, kid-friendly sites, maps, informative essays, and the insights of two experienced road trippers. First released locally in 2013, and fully updated in 2015, The Big Divide is in thousands of glove boxes and travel bags across Missouri and Kansas. Now, the authors are reaching out to history buffs, budget travelers, and families across America to tell the incredible story of the Border Region. Among the discoveries: The liberation of four million enslaved Americans began not in the East but on the prairies of Kansas; black soldiers first fought and died for their freedom in Missouri, not the East; Missouri came uncomfortably close to falling into Confederate hands; and the Border Region had a pivotal role in American history, from westward expansion to Indian policy to the Border War to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

Kansas is nicknamed “The Sunflower State,” “The Wheat State,” and “The Breadbasket of the World.” In Kansas, rural and urban come together in a fascinating mix. From the bright lights of Kansas City and Wichita to the star-strewn skies above the Flint Hills, beautiful Kansas will captivate you. Journey across Kansas’s endless horizons with the fascinating handbook, 100 Things to Do in Kansas Before You Die. Sing “Home on the Range” at the cabin where the song was born and watch the buffalo roam at Maxwell Wildlife Refuge. You’ll never forget the glorious sound of thousands of cranes singing at Cheyenne Bottoms. Soar above the skies in Wichita, the Air Capital of the World, and with Amelia Earhart in Atchison. Find out why you like Ike at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene. Adventurous cyclists should grind gravel during Emporia’s 200- mile bicycle race or ride across the state for two weeks during Biking Across Kansas in June. Discover natural wonders like Monument Rocks, giant marine fossils, and the Arikaree Breaks, the Canyons of Kansas. Local author Roxie Yonkey is your navigator from Route 66 to the Santa Fe Trail, ready to show the ropes to locals and visitors alike. Whether you’ve never trod the Road to Oz, or whether Kansas is your No Place Like Home, you need this guidebook.

The 216 finalists in the 8 Wonders of Kansas contests are featured in this full-color, spiral-bound guidebook.

From the churches and street corners of Harlem and The Bronx to the underground clubs of the East Village, New York City has been a musical mecca for generations, and Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City is the definitive story of its development throughout the five boroughs. Plug in and walk the same streets a young Bob Dylan walked. See where Patti Smith, the Ramones, Beastie Boys, and Jeff Buckley played. Visit on foot the places Lou Reed mentions in his songs or where Paul Simon grew up; where the Strokes drowned their sorrows, Grizzly Bear cut their teeth and Jimi Hendrix found his vision. Rock and Roll Explorer Guide gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at how bands came together, scenes developed, and classic songs were written. Artists come and go, neighborhoods change, venues open and close, but the music lives on. Contents Upper Manhattan and Harlem Upper West Side The Velvet Underground Upper East Side The Beatles John & Yoko Central Park Patti Smith Midtown West Beastie Boys Midtown East Madonna Chelsea & Hudson Yards Jimi Hendrix & Electric Lady Union Square & Madison Square New York Dolls West Village Bob Dylan East Village Blondie Soho & TriBeCa Sonic Youth Lower East Side The Strokes Brooklyn Talking Heads Queens Ramones Simon & Garfunkel The Bronx Kiss Staten Island Rock & roll may not have been born in New York, but this is one of the places it grew up and blew up and presented itself to the world. From the churches and street corners of Harlem and the Bronx to the underground clubs of the East Village, New York City has been a musical Mecca for generations, and The Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City is an historical journey through its development across all five boroughs. The Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City restores a sense of time and place to music history by identifying and documenting critical points of interest spanning genres and eras, and delineating the places in New York City critical to its musical development and ultimate triumphs and tragedies. Through this lens, we can see and understand how bands came together, scenes developed, and classic songs were written. In some cases, the buildings are still there, in others only the address remains, but you still get a sense of the history that happened there. Among the many locations in this book are addresses musicians and other key rock & roll figures once called home. In a very few instances we’ve included current addresses, but only when the location is historically significant and widely known; otherwise, we consciously left current residences out. The Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City is intended as a fun travel guide through music history rather than a means of locating famous musicians. Most New Yorkers understand that everyone has a right to privacy. That’s one of the reasons many of these artists live here. Because of the city’s rich history, this book cannot be a comprehensive encyclopedia of music, rock venues, or the music industry; nor do we present the definitive biographies of the musicians included. The artists and locations chosen represent a sometimes broad look at the history of rock & roll in the city, with an eye on those who either grew up or spent their formative years here. But there’s so much more we couldn’t include, and we hope readers will be inspired to go even further, whether they’re hitting the streets themselves or experiencing the city vicariously from afar. Artists come and go, neighborhoods change, venues open and close, but the music lives on.