Landing at Dodge City Regional Airport in Dodge City puts you right in the middle of things, with the old Santa Fe Trail, western Kansas, and plenty of cattle country within easy reach. Dodge City was the wildest cow town of the 1870s, the place where Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson kept a shaky peace and the Long Branch Saloon never closed. Today it is a working beef and farming city that enjoys its legend without taking it too seriously.

Standout things to do around Dodge City: - Walk reconstructed Front Street at the Boot Hill Museum and catch a gunfight show in summer - Visit the original Boot Hill cemetery and its famously quick burials - Sip a bourbon at Boot Hill Distillery, housed in the old city hall - Ride the trolley tour past Fort Dodge and the historic Santa Fe depot - See the Santa Fe Trail wagon ruts still cut into the prairie nine miles west of town - Catch the rodeo and parade during Dodge City Days in late July - Order tacos, menudo, or carnitas at one of the city's many Mexican restaurants

Dodge City is a good base for the open spaces of the High Plains. Fort Larned National Historic Site, a remarkably intact frontier fort, is about an hour northeast, the Big Well in rebuilt Greensburg is an hour east, and Garden City and its free zoo are 50 minutes west. The chalk pillars of Monument Rocks are about two hours north. Summer evenings bring the smell of mesquite smoke and the sound of Tejano music from backyard parties. Give Dodge City a long weekend and you will get out of Dodge happy.