… and west of Wichita, along Route 54, there is a tourist-attraction marker noting “World’s Largest Hand-Dug Well.”
So …
not much going on in Kansas, huh?
Be glad you only looked on a map and did not drive there. You do see some interesting (i.e., off-the-wall) attempts at tourist attractions. However, they are only of interest in comparison to driving along I-70, the most boring stretch of highway anywhere and you’d also swear it’s the longest.
I-70 boring?!? But…but…what about the Shryock’s corn maze? What could possibly be more fun than spending all day wandering around a corn field in Missouri in the middle of August?
*And that was last year’s corn field. This year’s is supposedly even bigger.
Did you ever read about the harrying climb to the top of Mt. Sunflower?
Oh boy, I’m going to have nightmares tonight.
No, there isn’t much “going on” here - but there is a very low crime rate, economy that has weathered the recession well, nice variable climate, friendly people, clean towns, and (outside of KCMO) decently clean air.
It’s a great place to live, even if people don’t want to visit here. If I want to do something “touristy” I just go back to England for a bit, or to Arizona, Utah, or any one of a number of places. Problem solved.
Imagine coming from a town where one of the attractions is the The Garbage Museum
They’d likely get more visitors if instead of “Trash-o-saurus”, they offered people “Truck-a-saurus”. 
Lana Lang lives in Kansas. That alone makes it worth the price of admission.
Ah yes…the well in Greensburg, Kansas. I have actually been down in that well, having grown up not too terribly far from there. I love Kansas, and granted, while there’s not a whole lot to see on I70 (world’s largest prairie dog, anyone?), other places like the Flint Hills are to me, absolutely wonderful. Also, the sunsets can be pretty spectacular, and just that feeling of being out in the wide open spaces is something you don’t find everywhere. I’ll also second what Anthracite said about the low crime rate, clean towns, friendly people, etc. Sigh. Wish I were there…
S/W part has fun sand dunes…
Pilots are usually very relaxed while flying over Kansas.
My grandparents lived on a farm in SW Kansas. My grandmother liked to tell the story of how her family came there in a covered wagon and of the trials and tribulations they endured on that endless arduous trip. It finally occurred to me to ask her where they’d come from. Her answer: “Topeka”.
Little did most of them know it was always going to be the first to fall to the communists.
Don’t forget that Cawker City has the world’s largest ball of twine.
And Lebanon KS is the geographic center of the continental US.
There’s also the Garden of Eden, the world’s largest (concrete) prairie dog, the world’s largest steam shovel… gosh the tourism possibilities are endless.
I’ve been to that well. I lived in Overland Park for a few years, and on a road trip out West when I was 16 we decided to stop and check it out. I don’t recall being allowed to go down inside it, as AmishBlue reports, but I do recall thinking, “Wow! That’s a really big well!”
I’ve been down to the bottom of that well, too. My parents come from SE Kansas (Little House on the Prairie country!) and on a trip back one summer we stopped.
I must have been around 14 or 15 and vividly remember thinking “Oh god, get me out of here.”
I have since gained a greater appreciation for kitsch. 
My mother hails from the Flint Hills area and, until a trip there as an adult a few years ago (as opposed to being dragged there kicking and screaming every summer on family vacations as a child), I’d never appreciated what a pretty area it is. I could see living there. As an added bonus, Westmoreland has the second-largest hand dug well.
My dad, on the other hand, is from nowheresville north central barely this side of western Kansas. It has its charms if you like flat and wheat but I couldn’t imagine living there.
All around my neighborhood, just a couple of kilometers west of the Missouri state line in Johnson County, Kansas, there are brown signs posted along many streets. The signs read:
SANTA FE TRAIL CROSSED HERE
CALIFORNIA TRAIL CROSSED HERE
or
MILITARY TRAIL CROSSED HERE
Ironically, the area is much hillier than the neighborhood where I lived in Denver, Colorado.
Oh … last week, the world’s largest furniture store opened in the otherwise scruffy town of Kansas City, Kansas. Nebraska Furniture Mart. 750,000 square feet.
It does sound like a nice place (I hope I didn’t sound like I was putting it down.) It seems like some of the best places to live are in many ways also the least interesting. New York City sounds very exciting, but then there’s crime and crowding.
So, how does one get to the bottom of the world’s largest hand-dug well, and what do you do when you’re down there?
This is the stuff Sam and Max love making fun of, right? I thought they were absurd exaggerations. But no, apparently not.
There was an Osage indian who was getting ready for his naming ceremony. His mother made him a wonderful dear skin outfit complete with soft comfortable moccasins. He set out on his quest to find his name.
He walked and he walked. Not much changed, so he found no inspiration for his name, so he walked some more.
Finally, something changed. He found, not his own name but the name that has carried through to the present.
Standing on a low rise, in what is now Kansas, he looked down at the once beautiful moccasins his mother had given him so long ago, and said “Hmmmm, Topeka”