# Road trips in Kansas > 3 road trips and 12 hand-picked places in Kansas, with routes, stops and practical tips for driving and camping. Source: https://camping-spirit.com/roadtrips/kansas/ 3 road trips and 12 hand-picked places in Kansas, with routes, stops and practical tips for driving and camping. ## Road trips through Kansas - [Kansas Flint Hills](https://camping-spirit.com/guides/flint-hills/): The last big tallgrass prairie, with bison, stone ranches and Santa Fe Trail towns. - [Kansas chalk badlands](https://camping-spirit.com/guides/b9-kansas-chalk/): From the fossil museum in Hays to chalk spires, arches and badlands rising from the prairie of western Kansas, ending at a canyon lake with a pueblo ruin. - [Kansas on the Santa Fe Trail: space museum, salt mine and Dodge City](https://camping-spirit.com/guides/b19-santa-fe-trail-kansas/): From Wichita to Dodge City along the old Santa Fe Trail, with a salt mine, a space museum, a lookout rock and a frontier fort on the way. ## Places worth the detour in Kansas - [Monument Rocks](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b9-monument-rocks/): Chalk pillars and arches up to 70 feet high, the remains of an ancient seabed. They stand on private land open to visitors; respect it and stay off the rocks. - [Cosmosphere](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b19-cosmosphere/): A space museum with one of the largest collections of US and Soviet spaceflight hardware outside the Smithsonian, including the Apollo 13 command module. Plan at least three hours; it is a surprise stop on the prairie. - [Fort Larned National Historic Site](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b19-fort-larned/): One of the best-preserved frontier forts in the West, with nine sandstone buildings from the 1860s set around a parade ground. It guarded the Santa Fe Trail; nearby ruts of the trail can still be seen. - [World's Largest Ball of Twine](https://camping-spirit.com/places/twine-ball/): Over 8 million feet of sisal twine and still growing. Visitors are invited to add a strand at the annual Twine-a-thon. - [Tallgrass Prairie Preserve](https://camping-spirit.com/places/tallgrass/): One of the last large pieces of tallgrass prairie, with a bison herd and an 1881 ranch house. - [Sternberg Museum of Natural History](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b9-sternberg-museum/): A museum of the fossils found in the Kansas chalk, including the famous fish-within-a-fish. Good background before driving out to the formations. - [Castle Rock](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b9-castle-rock-ks/): A chalk spire and badlands rising from the prairie south of I-70. The dirt roads are impassable after rain; do not climb the fragile rock. - [Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b9-little-jerusalem/): Kansas’s largest chalk formation, with rim trails looking down onto its spires. Access is limited to marked trails to protect the formation. - [Lake Scott State Park](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b9-lake-scott-sp/): A spring-fed lake in a canyon, with the ruins of El Cuartelejo, the northernmost known pueblo. A shady campground and good swimming. - [Strataca](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b19-strataca/): An underground salt mine museum 200 m below the prairie, reached by a hoist in hard hats. Exhibits and a mine train ride show how the Permian salt bed is worked; the air stays around 20 °C. - [Pawnee Rock State Historic Site](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b19-pawnee-rock/): A sandstone bluff that served as a landmark and lookout on the Santa Fe Trail, now topped with a shelter and a monument. Small, free and just off US-56; the view spans the Arkansas River valley. - [Boot Hill Museum](https://camping-spirit.com/places/b19-boot-hill/): A reconstructed Front Street of the 1870s cattle town on the site of the original Boot Hill cemetery, with a saloon, general store and summer gunfight shows. Parking for RVs on Wyatt Earp Boulevard. ## FAQs **What are the best road trips in Kansas?** Popular routes include Kansas Flint Hills, Kansas chalk badlands and Kansas on the Santa Fe Trail: space museum, salt mine and Dodge City. CampingSpirit has 3 trip guides that pass through Kansas, each with a stop-by-stop itinerary and a route map. **Which places in Kansas are worth a detour?** Our editors recommend Monument Rocks, Cosmosphere and Fort Larned National Historic Site.