An 11-million-pound electric coal shovel — the second-largest of its kind on Earth — that you can climb up inside near West Mineral in far-southeast Kansas, with a mining museum at its feet.
Road trips · Kansas
Kansas road trips & hidden gems.
The stops worth changing a travel day for in Kansas — crowd-voted gems, events worth traveling for, and the public golf you can actually book. Curated by Roamward, the scenic road-trip planner.
Hidden gems
What locals say you shouldn’t miss.
Crowd-nominated in the Gem Hunt. Add yours and vote the finalists into the app.
Seventy-foot chalk pyramids rising straight out of the flat western Kansas plains, a fossil-filled National Natural Landmark from an ancient seaway, free to wander by daylight in Gove County.
A Civil War vet spent 25 years sculpting this concrete-and-limestone fever dream of biblical scenes and political jabs in the grassroots-art town of Lucas, deep in north-central Kansas.
Hutchinson hides one of the best space museums in the country, home to the actual Apollo 13 command module and the largest combined U.S.-Russian space artifact collection anywhere.
The largest stretch of tallgrass prairie left on the planet, with 40-plus miles of trails and a free-roaming bison herd you can hike out to find, in the Flint Hills near Strong City.
On the western plains near Oakley, Kansas's newest state park protects towering chalk spires and canyons that glow at sunset like an ancient ruined city — easy overlook trails, a jaw-dropping detour.
Plan the Kansas trip
Get the scenic route, the stops, and the timing.
Roamward turns these into a real road trip — the drive, the detours, and the stays. Join early access for the iOS beta.