Landing at Chadron Municipal Airport in Chadron puts you at the center of a region, where nearby cities and scenery are close by. Chadron is a college town on the northern edge of the Nebraska Panhandle, where the flat plains suddenly break into the pine-covered ridges and buttes of the Pine Ridge. It is friendly, unpretentious, and surrounded by more public land than most people expect from Nebraska.

Standout stops around Chadron: - Tour the Museum of the Fur Trade, built around an 1830s trading post on the edge of town - Hike, bike, or ride horses through the ponderosa pines of Chadron State Park, the oldest in Nebraska - Drive out to Fort Robinson State Park near Crawford, where Crazy Horse died and the parade grounds are still intact - Walk the moonscape of Toadstool Geologic Park, a badlands of mushroom-shaped rock - Visit the Hudson-Meng Bison Kill site, where hundreds of ancient bison bones lie where they fell - Catch Fur Trade Days in July, with a buckskinner rendezvous and a parade - Look for bighorn sheep and elk on the back roads of the Nebraska National Forest

Chadron also sits within easy reach of bigger names. Fort Robinson is a half hour west, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument are a bit over an hour southwest, and Hot Springs, South Dakota, with its warm-water pool and the Mammoth Site, is about an hour north. The southern Black Hills, Custer State Park, and the Crazy Horse Memorial are within about two hours. Order a runza or a bison burger, walk out under a sky that goes on forever, and you will understand why Chadron keeps a low profile but a loyal following.