Kansas

Kansas is more than a flat place with cornfields and elite college basketball. Kansas City has been a hotbed of jazz, and the home of some great barbecue. For some history, tour the Brown vs. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, set in a former African-American elementary school from the time when segregation in education was challenged. Wichita has recreations of the Wild West at Old Cowtown. The Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, a small city right in the middle of Kansas, has extremely enlightening displays and the actual Apollo 13 command module, and Abilene has the Eisenhower Center, set in Ike’s boyhood home. Get out and explore the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Chase County. It’s a great place to hike among abundant wildflowers.

Steaks and pork chops are very popular in Kansas, and a lot of the sustainable cuisine seems burger-centric, but you can find veggie burgers and additions like housemade pickles with pungent horseradish flavor. Lawrence, Manhattan, and even some non-collegiate cities offer Indian and East Asian restaurants where vegetarians and others can happily eat together. Salads, fresh juices, and maybe some full-on raw cuisine are other possible options for the veggie lover. In some places, groceries are a better bet for organic cuisine than restaurants. If you want some informal, old-fashioned grub, you could do worse than chilling out with a homemade root beer in Wichita. It goes well with loose-meat sandwiches.