The Big Kansas Road Trip (BKRT) will be moving to southeast Kansas May 5-8, 2022 showcasing the counties of Bourbon, Cherokee and Crawford. The news was announced at the Kansas Explorers Club meeting on the last day of the 2021 BKRT in Brown, Doniphan and Nemaha counties.
A project of the non-profit, Inman-based Kansas Sampler Foundation, the event format is akin to a tri-county open house with an opportunity for the public to choose their adventures ala carte. Foundation director Marci Penner said, “We simply ask communities to be good at being themselves. The exploring public is interested in visiting with locals, and shopping and eating at locally-owned places, and seeing an area through the eyes of those who live there.”
Postponed for a year due to the pandemic, the 2021 version of getting to know rural Kansas was attended by hundreds who came from as far away as Wisconsin, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska and every part of Kansas.
Penner said, “We have heard nothing but good comments from those who traveled to get to know this part of the state. They found restaurants, locally-owned shops, and attractions that they will return to. They met locals who left a wonderful impression. There is no way to know how many people came to the BKRT but those that did will forever have pleasant feelings and reaction to these three counties. That’s priceless.”
Some of the attractions in the 2022 BKRT will be Fort Scott National Historic Site, the Gordon Parks Museum, and the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes in Bourbon County; Big Brutus, Route 66, and the T.J. Losey Memorial in Cherokee County; and fried chicken, the Miners’ Memorial and the PSU Veterans Memorial Amphitheater in Crawford County.
To learn more about how the BKRT works, go to www.bigkansasroadtrip.com and “like” the Big Kansas Road Trip Facebook page.
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