If you are driving through town for the first time just remember, people out here are generally nice, but don't think that means you should take advantage or try and bully people with road rage. We may not be gangsters, but we do have concealed carry licenses.

Kansas driving is so different from driving in other states like California because you are doing a lot of long distance driving. People in California are blown away when I tell them that I drive 120 miles round trip to go to a certain store. But what they don't understand is that distance takes me the same amount of time as it took me to drive 15 miles in California! So make sure you get a car that can take the miles, and front wheel drive or all wheel drive is a must come winter with the snow!

I still remember when I first got to town last year, I had just drove cross country and was just finishing a 10 hour drive through areas where the view was nothing but flat grassy areas and trees. After that drive through a completely empty area I was experiencing more then a little culture shock because I was moving out here from California, where there were so many houses and buildings crammed everywhere that now a days most people didn't even have full sized yards, and now suddenly I was in an area with nothing but space. I then drove through overland park and I was blown away, just minutes from so many small towns and wide open spaces there was suddenly a normal city that wouldn't have been out of place in California, size wise. Except everyone seemed to be extremely polite on the roads, and actually honored right of way, and actually gave up their right of way to other people. I couldn't believe I managed to find other drivers that care about the other people on the road! Pure bliss!

69 Highway. It stretches clear across the state (plus into other states) but it is just amazing to drive down because you see so many different towns that are completely built around the highway and wouldn't exist if it wasn't for it being there. Just one amazing way to see so many different sides of Kansas.

The biggest tip to help me understand how to get around and where I was at was knowing that as the street numbers were going up, you are going south. And that also if you have reached Stateline, you are in Missouri, and you have gone too far!

There are a number of different areas where you will find many car dealerships. My advise would be to know the kind of car you want or just know you have the opportunity to visit and try out many different dealerships. Also, find a car with good gas mileage, it is spread out enough and the public transportation is not great. You will be driving a lot.

When I first moved to Overland Park fifteen years ago I had never been to Kansas. I had the typical vision of Kansas in my head. I believed I was going to be in a small town, thinking that Overland Park was out in the country and not a suburb of Kansas City. I drove from I-70 to I-435 and I saw a huge hospital just off the interstate and though, oh my! This is a big town, not at all what I had imagined.

Pflumm. I really enjoy driving on Pflumm because it is further west in the city, just on the border of Olathe. Because it is further west it gives you all of what Overland Park is like, you get the big businesses and then if you continue to drive on this road you start seeing older homes and then you get into the country and see farms.