More Missouri Travel Tips: KC and Southwest Missouri

Missouri Travel Tips:

KC and Southwest, MO

Kansas City and Southwest Missouri abound with group-friendly attractions, some of them brand new, others tried and true. Travel planners working on heartland itineraries have dozens of ways to fill their days.

Kansas City has been exploding with new developments in the last few years, with more on the horizon. The most talked-about project is downtown’s eightblock Kansas City Power & Light District, an entertainment/dining/retail powerhouse attracting flocks of locals, tourists and conventioneers. One block features a ring of restaurants and music clubs surrounding a covered outdoor courtyard with a stage offering live acts more than 150 days a year. Nightspots include Raglan Irish pub, Howl at the Moon dueling pianos, Maker’s Mark bourbon lounge, McFadden’s sports bar and Big Sky, a cowboy bar. Amid the historic Art Deco buildings in the district are landmark theaters that have seen lavish makeovers.

Not far away, the College Basketball Experience has cemented the area’s reputation as a hoops hotbed. Connected to the new Sprint Center arena, it offers high-energy exhibits that allow visitors to try their hand at shooting, passing and sportscasting, and houses the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

(Kansas City has hosted more Final Fours and more NCAA basketball games than any other city in the country.)

Powell Gardens, Kansas City’s botanical garden, just unveiled its 100-percentedible, 12-acre Heartland Harvest Garden, which shows the path of food from seed to plate. Highlights include a demonstration kitchen, education garden and four acres of intricate quilt gardens that visitors can view from the top of a 45foot silo. The new garden, the first of its kind in the country, features plantings of fruit trees, grape vines, vegetables, herbs and flowers.

For more information, contact:

Missouri Division of Tourism: 800-519-2100, www.visitmo.com Branson/Lakes Area CVB: 800-296-0463, www.explorebranson.com Joplin CVB: 800-657-2534, www.visitjoplin.com Kansas City CVA: 800-767-7700, www.visitkc.com Springfield CVB: 800-678-8767, www.springfieldmo.org

Kansas City Museums A can’t-miss sight is the world-class National World War I Museum, which opened to critical acclaim in 2006 on a hill overlooking the downtown skyline. In the first and only American museum dedicated solely to the Great War of 1914-1917, a wide-screen theater show and superb exhibits bring alive the oft-forgotten conflict. Guests begin their gallery visit by walking over a bridge that spans a field of 9,000 poppies, each representing 1,000 combat deaths during WWI. An elevator takes visitors to the observation platform atop the adjacent 217-foot Liberty Memorial tower, a monument built in 1926 to honor those who defended liberty. Frank Buckles, the last known American veteran who served in the war, visited the museum last year. The 107-year-old West Virginia resident (now 108) was honored at Memorial Day weekend events.

Near the war museum are other group favorites―the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Money Museum, which opened last year, and hands-on Science City in Union Station. Crown Center, in the same area just south of downtown, is anchored by an enclosed shopping mall, the Hyatt and Westin hotels, and corporate headquarters of Hallmark Cards. Explore nearly a century of greeting card history at the free-admission Hallmark Visitor Center. The latest Hallmark products are for sale in the Hallmark Crown Center store.

The Arabia Steamboat Museum, with buried treasured from a sunken 1856 Missouri River steamboat unearthed from a field just 21 years ago, is a historical gem in Kansas City’s River Market area, home to the 150-year-old City Market, one of the Midwest’s largest farmers’ markets. Providing a valuable peek into life on the frontier, the museum brims with commercial goods that were bound for Western outposts, from bottles of ketchup, pickles and pie fillings to stirrups, axe handles, candlesticks and door knobs. Items from the paddlewheeler are still being cleaned, a chore that may take another 10-12 years. Visitors can see restoration experts at work.

The 18th and Vine Historic Jazz District, once the epicenter of Kansas City’s African-American community, is home to a complex housing the American Jazz Museum and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Hear live jazz in The Blue Room four nights a week.

Country Club Plaza, with its stately fountains, statues, public art and Spanishinfluenced architecture, is Kansas City’s premier shopping destination, offering more than 150 stores and restaurants. Photo ops include the replica of Seville’s Giralda tower and the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain with its four equestrian figures. The best known of 200 fountains in the “City of Fountains” pays tribute to the developer of the 15-block district, a gathering spot since the 1920s.

Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue is a good place for Plaza visitors to sample Kansas City barbecue, from ribs and chicken to hickory-smoked beef brisket, ham, turkey and pork. One of three Jack Stack locations, it’s one of more than 100 area barbecue establishments, each boasting its own recipe for sauce, which is added right before serving. Arthur Bryant’s and Gates are other famous barbecue havens with multiple locations.

The West Edge & Advertising Icon Museum, part of a new development one block west of Country Club Plaza, is set to open this fall and will feature the world’s largest collection of 3-D advertising figures. The project will include the headquarters of Bernstein-Rein Advertising, a boutique hotel and fine dining restaurant.

Springfield Sightseeing Fantastic Caverns, America’s only ride-through cave, is among the top group-tour attractions in Springfield, the state’s third-largest city (after St. Louis and Kansas City). Jeep-drawn trams take visitors past the glistening formations beneath the rolling Ozark hills. The 50-minute, mile -long tours require no walking. The Auditorium Room, a vast natural theater that can seat several thousand people, was home to a weekly live country music show from the late 1950s to mid-1960s.

Another cavernous Springfield claim to fame is the world’s oldest and largest Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, the most visited attraction in Missouri. With acres of camping, boating, fishing, hunting and golf supplies, not to mention foods, clothing and home goods, the company’s flagship store makes a great shopping/sightseeing stop, attracting four million visitors a year to its rustic, log cabin-style confines. Giant aquariums, a four-story waterfall, turtle pond and mounted animals, like the trophy Kodiak brown bear, provide plenty of photo ops. Other diversions include the daily fish feeding show and laser shooting gallery. The mega-store’s African bush-themed restaurant, Hemingway’s Blue Water Cafe, has an outstanding, reasonably priced lunch buffet with a soup and salad bar, cornbread, carved roast beef and fried catfish. Save room for the bread pudding and fruit cobbler.

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Springfield Sightseeing Cont...

Groups also like Lambert’s Cafe, the “Home of Throwed Rolls,” just south of Springfield in Ozark. Waiters actually toss customers their hot rolls rather than politely bring them to the table. Besides enjoying this tradition, patrons appreciate the generous portions of Southern -style food, which includes fried chicken, fried catfish, chicken and dumplings, fried okra, fried potatoes and onions, and black-eyed peas.

Wonders of Wildlife, a first-class attraction next door to Bass Pro, is closed for a major renovation/expansion but will reopen with its impressive collection of 200-plus animal species in natural habitats, plus many new features. Other Springfield animal havens include the Dickerson Park Zoo and Animal Paradise, a drive-through wildlife park in nearby Strafford. Also in the area is Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, where a film and exhibits describe the second major battle of the Civil War. For baseball action, catch the Springfield Cardinals, the Double-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Sports fans also are attracted to the Missouri Sports Hall of fame, which honors more than 300 individuals, including Stan Musial, Lou Brock, George Brett, Payne Stewart and Rusty Wallace. Visitors get in on the action by joining the race in the NASCAR simulator, calling the game in the announcer’s booth, shooting baskets and throwing passes.

Branson: Music and More Springfield, dubbed “Queen City of the Ozarks,” anchors Southwest Missouri and serves as a gateway to musically inclined Branson, 35 miles south. One of the Midwest’s most popular vacation lands for group and family travelers, the little Ozarks town this year is celebrating its 50th year of offering live music shows. Baldknobbers Jamboree, still going strong with country music and hillbilly humor, started it all in 1959.

Known as the “Live Music Show Capital of the World,” Branson boasts more than 100 different shows―many of them wrapped in nostalgia—and more theater seats than Broadway.

Louise Harrison, sister of the late George Harrison, presents the ultimate Beatles experience in the Starlite Theatre show Liverpool Legends, now in its fourth year, and plans to start a library/museum with memorabilia from her archives. She hand-picked the four singers who portray John, Paul, George and Ringo, and greets guests after the show. Hits like “Yellow Submarine,” “Twist and Shout” and “Hey, Jude” are interspersed with black-and-white news clips of the hysteria that accompanied Beatlemania in the 1960s.

Just down the road is Titanic, one of Branson’s major attractions. Visitors enter the ship-shaped museum through an iceberg and take a 90-minute, self-guided tour designed to give the sensation of being a passenger on the 1912 maiden voyage of the ill-fated liner. Besides seeing 400 rare artifacts (like a lifejacket and deck chair), guests look inside authentically detailed rooms, view the bow section recreated for the 1997 movie Titanic, and sit in a lifeboat and listen to survivors’ stories.

Another group favorite in Branson is Silver Dollar City, an Ozarks-style theme park with rides, home-style taste treats, rousing music shows and craft demonstrations, plus a full lineup of festivals. Silver Dollar City’s new Culinary & Crafts School, in a timber building styled as a vintage farmhouse, offers cooking classes several times a day in a state-of-the-art kitchen with Viking appliances and flat-screen TVs. Guests sample the foods and receive take-home recipes. Woodcarving, holiday wreaths and other crafts are taught in the Craftsmen’s Showcase room, adjacent to the kitchen.

Branson Landing, a new downtown development on Lake Taneycomo, offers more than 100 specialty shops and restaurants, a boardwalk with strolling characters and live entertainment, and a water and fire show centered around a dazzling $7.5-million fountain. Sightseeing adventures include Ride the Ducks tours and lake cruises on Branson’s Lake Queen and Branson Landing Princess. The anchor stores are Bass Pro Shops and Belk Department Store. Waterfront dining options range from Bar Louie and Joe’s Crab Shack to Famous Dave’s BBQ and Ernie Bigg’s Dueling Piano Bar and Grille.

“Wedding Italiano,” an audience-participation comedy show, opens this fall in Branson Landing. After “invited guests” witness the holy nuptials, there’s a rousing reception with dancing, champagne toasts, a full pasta dinner and, of course, a slice of the wedding cake.

Joplin, in Missouri’s far southwestern corner, attracts groups with places like the Candy House, maker of some of the best hand-dipped chocolates anywhere. Free samples and factory tours are available. Those with a sweet tooth also like the National Cookie Cutter Historical Museum, a collector’s dream housed in the Joplin Museum Complex, a comprehensive museum filled with artifacts relating to the area’s cultural and mining history. Lead and zinc mining fueled the growth of the Tri-State district where Missouri meets Kansas and Oklahoma. Joplin’s new Wildcat Glades Conservation & Audubon Center captivates nature lovers.