Kansas City

Kansas City is located on the western side of Missouri, along the border with Kansas. It's famous for its BBQ, jazz history, and fountains. In the famous 18th & Vine Jazz District, the American Jazz Museum shares a facility with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. With gigantic shuttlecocks out front, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art holds almost 40,000 works of art, ranging from ancient to modern collections.

Kansas City is a welcoming city filled with down-to-earth Midwesterners who smile at strangers as they walk by on the street. But Kansas City is also cool: The Power & Light District is filled with stylish clubs and restaurants, as well as similarly trendy 20- and 30-somethings. The city is also culturally rich, with several unexpectedly good institutions like the Nelson-Atkins Museum. Furthermore, the city's history as a trading center in 1821 and as a key halt on the Oregon Trail in the early 1800s lends itself to an engaging tale. Parts of this history may be seen in the National World War I and Arabia Steamboat museums.

Kansas City's jazz and barbeque are unrivaled, but the city has also successfully ventured into other genres of music and food (more on that in the dining section). To avoid confusion, Kansas City is located in both the Show-Me State of Missouri and the Sunflower State of Kansas. If you're a visitor, you'll probably spend most of your time on the Missouri side because that's where the majority of the city's top attractions are.

Best Hotels in Kansas City:

• The Fontaine
• 21C Museum Hotel Kansas City
• Crossroads Hotel

The Best Things to Do in Kansas City:

• The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
• Arabia Steamboat Museum.
• Boulevard Brewing Company.

Ranking + Rating

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