Wichita: The Best Little Big City for Families

Wichita may be the biggest city in Kansas, but, as I walked around town, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was in one of the country’s greatest small towns. Perhaps it was the absence of all the things that serve as constant reminders you are in a large city. Instead of crowds, traffic jams and busy people rushing through life, I found clean, wide-open streets and happy, smiling faces — just the kind of place you want to explore with a family.

Old Town Wichita is a great neighborhood to make your basecamp during your visit. The area is extremely walkable, chock full of great shops and restaurants that offer something for everyone, and the nooks and crannies are packed with great artwork waiting to be discovered.

The Hotel at Old Town offers the perfect blend of fancy hotel and family-friendly amenities like laundry services, spacious adjoining rooms and fully equipped kitchenettes in every room so you can keep food costs down during your trip. The hotel features a different theme on every floor, like the aviation theme on the third floor. And this tasteful nod to the city’s past is just an introduction to the history you can experience in Wichita.

© Eugenia Lazaris

Aviation is one of the state’s biggest claims to fame, and Wichita has the perfect place to teach kids all about it. The Kansas Aviation Museum features 40 historical planes and a control tower you can tour to see the city from a 360-degree vantage point. Inside and outside exhibits showcase the history of aviation and how it evolved through the years, as well as the role Kansas played and continues to play in it.

If the little ones like the engineering aspect of aviation, they will love Exploration Place. As Wichita’s premier science center, Exploration Place is designed to inspire and encourage interest in the sciences through play and learning. In addition to fun interactive exhibits and activities, the center also hosts fun events like the Drone Light Festival (Sept. 20–22), which features a nighttime drone show and lantern festival.

For families with an interest in wildlife, Wichita’s Tanganyika Wildlife Park offers a day of fun and learning with some of the world’s most amazing creatures. The park, which offers animal experiences like feeding giraffes and swimming with penguins, is designed to educate and teach proper stewardship of the animals we share this world with. You can feed ring-tailed lemurs and pygmy hippopotamuses, and during the warmer months of summer, kids can take a break to splash and play at Tanganyika Falls Splash Park.

This list is just a drop in the bucket of fun things awaiting families in Wichita, but no matter how you choose to spend your time together, you will be hard-pressed to remember you are in the largest city in the state.