We decided to travel through Kansas on our way west, but we wanted to go the more scenic route. As long as the road was safe for us to tow our fifth wheel, we decided to try it. And the attractions we found along the way made taking the scenic route worth it.

NOTE: Sorry in advance, but this post has a lot of photos!

The Oz Museum

Take a drive to the town of Wamego and you’ll find the largest collection of Wizard of Oz memorabilia anywhere in the world. The Oz Museum is a private collection that was donated to the town. It now attracts thousands to this small town every year to “follow the yellow brick road”. And be sure to walk around the town and find the various Toto statues. We found the largest one on the south end of town.

Strataca Underground Salt Mine

West of Wichita is a unique attraction that is still in operation today. The Strataca Underground Salt Mine is worth the drive to Hutchinson, Kansas. This 2.5-square mile mine not only produces salt, it is also home to some interesting collections and artifacts. The self-guided tour begins with a descent 650 feet down in the same elevator used by miners for decades. We wore hardhats while on the tour for safety reasons. The first part of the tour showed the equipment miners use to extract the salt. It was interesting to see how the equipment has changed over the years.

Because the climate is consistent throughout the year, Strataca is also a great place to house memorabilia from Hollywood. Reels of film from movies and tv shows, as well as boxes of scripts and documents from Hollywood are stored here.

There are even supplies and rations from the Cold War stored here!

We then took the Salt Safari Tour. This 1-hour tour took us further into the mine. We were able to see the mine and even all the trash the miners discarded while working there! Since the elevators were only used to bring money-producing salt up from the mine, they didn’t want to waste time bringing up machines or even trash. So they just left it there.

If you are traveling anywhere near Hutchinson, Kansas, this place is a must do!

Greensburg, Kansas

The small town of Greensburg, Kansas, has two claims to fame–home to one of the 8 wonders of Kansas, and home to a town built from resilience and determination brought on by a natural disaster. The Big Well Museum tells of the story of these two claims beautifully.

The Big Well Museum

Greensburg is home to The Big Well. This hand-dug well is so massive and an engineering marvel that it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Tornado of 2007

On May 4, 2007, an EF-5 tornado ripped through the town of Greenburg, all but wiping it off the map. Twelve lives were lost, and the devastation was almost incomprehensible. This museum tells not only the story of the tornado, but the town’s resilience and efforts to bring it back better, safer, and using environmentally green resources.

Conclusion

We have traveled many miles across North America, and we are always amazed at what you can experience when you get off the interstates and take the smaller highways and back roads. We loved this adventure across Kansas, and we hope you’ll add these stops to your travel bucket list.

We’re Mike & Jennifer Skinnell, and together we are The Rambling Quilter. We travel the country full-time in our 42 ft. fifth-wheel pulled by our F-450. Jennifer writes our blog, travel articles, contemporary romance, cozy mysteries, and “Don’t Wait – Our Full-Time Journey Through Breast Cancer”. Our blog is purely for information and entertainment purposes. However, if you’d like to support Jennifer’s writing career, her author link to her books is below.