Glacial Hills Scenic Byway
Distance: 63 miles
Take a nostalgic ride on the restored 1913 carousel at the C.W. Parker Carousel Museum in Leavenworth—and look for an ear of corn carved onto one of the saddles. Speaking of rides, the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum in Atchison tells of the homemade roller coaster that gave wings to Earhart’s dream of flying. The Tall Oak Indian Monument in Troy reaches great heights—Peter Toth sculpted the 27-foot-tall statue from a burr oak log to honor Indigenous nations. On a clear day, the Four State Lookout in White Cloud (a town with an Indigenous namesake) offers views of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa.
Native Stone Scenic Byway
Distance: 75 miles
Snow, wind, lightning, fire, smoke and twinkling fireflies are among the 4D effects in the immersive-experience theater at Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan. They help tell the story of the region’s history, ecology and culture. Volland was once a thriving community near Alma. Today, The Volland Store—the town’s former grocery store and social hub—has been reimagined as an art gallery, event space and vacation rental. View the art on weekend afternoons, then stroll the sculpture-studded Volland Trail. Visit the Wabaunsee County Historical Society Museum in Alma to learn about the area’s signature native stone fences (some have endured more than 150 years), arched stone cellars and one-room schoolhouses.
Flint Hills National Scenic Byway
Distance: 48 miles
Migrating waterfowl touch down at Council Grove Lake, while songbirds provide a soundtrack for the 1.25-mile Pioneer Nature Trail that loops the lake. Also in Council Grove, visit the Kaw Mission State Historic Site and Last Chance Store, remnants of complex and sometimes fraught interactions between Native Americans and settlers in the 1850s. The store re-creates an 1857 Santa Fe Trail trading post—once the last place to buy supplies before heading West. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Strong City affords a rare chance to view a vanishing ecosystem. Less than 4 percent of such prairie remains intact, mostly in the Flint Hills region.
Prairie Trail Scenic Byway
Distance: 80 miles
Channel your Scandi self in Lindsborg, aka Little Sweden, famous for its painted Dala horses around town. Take home a personalized Dala-shaped house sign from Swedish crafts shop Hemslöjd. Survey the town from a stone castle atop Coronado Heights, a 300-foot-tall bluff named for the Spanish explorer, who—according to lore—may have climbed it while searching for gold in the 1500s. Flash forward to post-Civil War Kansas at the Hodgden House Museum Complex in Ellsworth. The era tour includes an 1870s residence and a rare Union Pacific wooden caboose outside a depot.
Post Rock Scenic Byway
Distance: 18 miles
The little town of Lucas loves unconventional public art in a big way. Get oriented at the Grassroots Art Center, which spotlights works by self-taught “outsider” artists. Visitors are relieved to discover that one of the installations, Bowl Plaza, is a functional public restroom. The building is shaped like a toilet tank, with a 16-foot-tall mosaic oval “lid” at the entrance and curved benches forming the bowl. Find another shapely artwork in Wilson, where the World’s Largest Czech Egg measures 20x15 feet and weighs 7,000 pounds. The fiberglass-and-steel ovoid, standing upright in a gazebo, is painted with patterns that honor local Czech heritage.
Wetlands and Wildlife National Scenic Byway
Distance: 77 miles
A rare combination of inland salt marsh and sand prairie, Quivira National Wildlife Refuge near Stafford acts as a layover for half a million migrating birds in the spring and fall. Besides ducks and geese, frequent-fliers include whooping and Sandhill cranes, herons, white pelicans, and bald eagles. About 40 miles north in Great Bend, the Kansas Wetlands Education Center overlooks another essential habitat: Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area. The center’s exhibits walk you through the history of Cheyenne Bottoms—the largest wetland in the interior United States—from ancient geological formation to modern-day environmental challenges. Spotting scopes and a nature trail lend a closer look at flora and fauna.
Gypsum Hills Scenic Byway
Distance: 42 miles
Invigorate your senses at refreshing Lake Coldwater, the area’s only lake for swimming, fishing and boating. Carry Nation didn’t mind water, but she sure had opinions about booze. Learn about her life at Carry Nation Home in Medicine Lodge and see the hatchet she used to smash saloons where folks imbibed. Instead of painting the town red, artist Earl Kuhn, a native Kansan, paints the countryside in watercolors. See his works depicting contemporary ranch hands and their steeds in stunning detail at the Sagebrush Gallery of Western Art, also located in Medicine Lodge.
Smoky Valley Scenic Byway
Distance: 60 miles
Freight trains still pass through Ellis, a town founded as a trackside water station. The Ellis Railroad Museum preserves the spirit of early 1900s rail travel through a replica depot displaying a telegraph machine, carts for luggage and mail, and a 5,000-square-foot model train layout. Limestone cliffs surround uncrowded waters for swimming, fishing, boating and skiing at Cedar Bluff Reservoir south of Ogallah. (If you’re not feeling that ambitious, just plant yourself on a sandy beach.) Rock chalk, indeed: Castle Rock, a 70-foot-tall limestone spire, rises dramatically from the horizon near Quinter. It was formed by the erosion of an ancient chalk bed.
Land and Sky Scenic Byway
Distance: 88 miles
The Arikaree Breaks near St. Francis stuns with its 36-mile stretch of ravines and gullies carved and created by wind-deposited sand, silt and clay. Yucca plants, sage and buffalo grass accent the landscape. The St. Francis Motorcycle Museum holds rare sights too. Among more than 170 vintage models is a 1912 Sears Dreadnaught, one of only a handful thought to exist, and a 1914 Feilbach Limited—even fewer of those remain. Mount Sunflower in Weskan may be more hill than mountain, but it’s the highest point in Kansas, and a spectacular spot to watch sunrises and sunsets.
