The Kansas City Zoo is located in Swope Park at 6800 Zoo Drive, Kansas City, Mo.

Summer is the perfect time for families to hit the open road, and the state and surrounding areas have a number of kid-friendly attractions, sure to please even the pickiest of young travelers.

• What child doesn’t love an amusement park? If you’re looking for some high-flying, fast-paced fun, head to Worlds of Fun in Kansas City. The park’s seventh roller coaster, the Prowler, is scheduled to open this spring. Kids will love the two-and-a-half minute ride on the wooden coaster, which reaches speeds of up to 51 mph.

• Or for more of a weekend get-away, Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo., combines the excitement of a theme park with a historical step back in time to the late 1800s in the Ozarks.

More than 100 craftsman are dispersed throughout the park demonstrating such trades as glass-blowing, blacksmithing and candle making.

The park also hosts six festivals throughout the year, including KidsFest, which runs June 6 through Aug. 9.

Do the zoo

• If your kids are animal lovers, the Kansas City Zoo in Swope Park is home to more than 1,000 animals. The zoo’s newest exhibit, Tropics, an indoor rainforest, opened to the public May 1.

The zoo also offers educational programs for kids, or you can take the whole family on an overnight campout at a secret campground in the middle of the zoo, complete with marshmallows roasted over an open campfire, followed by breakfast with the chimpanzees.

• Or make the trek down Interstate 70 and visit Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure, a museum and zoo six miles west of Salina. If you time it right, your kids may get the chance to hand-feed a giraffe.

Learning opportunities

Just because school is out, it doesn’t mean your children can’t get in a little learning. There are a number of educational attractions to visit:

• Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, Topeka: A museum dedicated to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision. Visitors can take self-guided tours of the former Monroe Elementary School, which has been rehabilitated to its 1954 appearance.

• Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene: Visitors can tour Ike’s boyhood home, as well as a museum and library showcasing the career of the military leader and nation’s 34th president. The site also marks Eisenhower’s final resting place. A three-day commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day Invasion is planned for June 5 -7.

• Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, Hutchinson: Contains one of the largest U.S. space artifact collections, second only to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

• Kansas Underground Salt Museum, Hutchinson: Visitors board a double-decked elevator which takes them 650 feet underground to a museum carved into salt deposits formed 280 million years ago. One of only 16 salt mines in the United States, and the only one in the Western Hemisphere with an underground museum open to tourists.

• Science City at Union Station, Kansas City, Mo.: Features more than 50 interactive areas for kids to explore science through hands-on exhibits. Saturday family workshops offered throughout the summer.

• Oz Museum, Wamego: a museum dedicated to “all things Oz,” featuring more than 2,000 artifacts from L. Frank Baum’s beloved classic.

Just for fun

• If you’re looking for something a little more off the beaten path, head to Cawker City, in northcentral Kansas, the home of the World’s Largest Ball of Twine.

Linda Clover is the caretaker of the nearly 19,000-pound ball made up of more than 7.9 million feet of sisal twine.

“I have children who get so excited when I tell them that they can actually make the ball of twine bigger,” Clover said. “A couple from Dallas take their children’s photo in front of it every year, showing them a record of their children’s growth.”