Alright, I admit it: my husband and I are nerds. We can have fun on just about any travel adventure, but when we’re on a little bit of a budget and just want to see some new sights in the States, we tend to gravitate toward… college towns.
I already mentioned this in my Madison, Wisconsin post, but Matt and I are currently working toward our PhDs, and we want to go into university jobs, so we will probably be living in college towns our whole lives. You’d think that this fact would make us want to see other kinds of places, but we actually like to judge an area by its college town. They usually have a lot of charm and are just our speed–plus, they give us a good dose of nice-looking buildings.
So, for our spring break this year, we decided to hit up a few big college towns in our area. During our years here in Champaign-Urbana, we’ve tried to make our way to all the Midwestern states. So it was a no-brainer to check off a few more that we haven’t yet visited, using their respective universities as a route guide: Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri.
Matt took a half day at work on Wednesday so that we could get a head start on the long drive out to Kansas, and we arrived in the quirky little town of Lawrence, a 6.5-hour drive from Urbana, in the evening. Since we were pretty exhausted from the trip, we did nothing the first night except check into our hotel and crash. But we were up bright and early the next morning to see a campus that I’ve already visited but Matt has never seen: the University of Kansas.
The only time I’d spent in Lawrence was way back in 2019 when the University of Kansas was recruiting me for their literature PhD program, and I hadn’t gotten a lot of time to sightsee while I was there. But what I did remember, and what I’d told Matt before our trip stood out to me the most about the area, was the unique “hipster” vibe that the town’s buildings and homes have. Dotted with local coffee shops, book stores, and houses with lots of color and character, the streets of Lawrence are honestly just refreshing to walk around.
Unfortunately, we had one day to spend, and that day turned out to be… rainy. So we couldn’t take a jaunt around the neighborhood as planned, but we could still check off one of our favorite college campus activities: shopping at the university book store. At first, Matt and I thought that the University of Kansas was a bit of letdown in terms of its merchandise selection; we entered the store from the outside, and were greeted by a frankly tiny room with nothing but a few t-shirt racks and a few shelves of actual books. But then we realized with a laugh that we were just in what was essentially an annex to a much larger, multi-room bookstore, complete with clothes and accessories for the whole family, including the dog.
We spent a long time perusing the shelves, and we both bought our signature travel souvenirs: Matt, a keychain and me, something small enough to put in my printer’s box (in this case, a magnet that could also double as a standing keepsake). When we were satisfied with our browsing, we decided it was finally time to brave the rain. We zipped up our raincoats, flipped up our hoods, walked outside, and… found out the rain had completely stopped! In fact, it was so dry that it was actually kind of toasty in our jackets.
The lack of rain meant we were free to explore the campus at a leisurely pace, stopping to take every picture we pleased. The main area is compact, but the buildings are all very complementary in color and design. Personally, I really love the sandy brick they use throughout campus. It was a bit small for Matt, but I kind of adore the quaintness of it.
Our two favorite things about campus were the Natural History Museum–just a gorgeous building and a statement centerpiece of the main street–and the many, many bird statues over an exceedingly short distance.
After a delicious lunch near our hotel, Matt and I spent the remainder of the afternoon driving around the residential areas surrounding the campus and down Lawrence’s most famous street, Massachusetts Street. When making our way down the street, we passed by houses with tons of character that seemed to get cuter and cuter until we suddenly ran into a quite impressive downtown area. Packed on both sides with local shops and restaurants, this part of Massachusetts Street seemed to encapsulate what people really like about Lawrence. For a relatively small college town, the number of attractions downtown frankly made Matt and I jealous–why isn’t Champaign or Urbana like this??
A short break in the hotel room to watch some March Madness later, we found ourselves back on Massachusetts Street to go to a restaurant I remembered loving from my first visit to Lawrence: The Burger Stand at the Casbah. One of my food mantras is the shorter the menu, the better, and that’s just what the Burger Stand is about. Matt and I got a couple classics with a shared side of sweet potato fries, and we were well satisfied.
The next morning we were on the road again, this time to a state neither of us had ever visited. The University of Nebraska is only a little over three hours away from the University of Kansas by car, so in the planning stages of this trip it was hard to resist the idea of just popping up to see it. Our initial impression driving into town was that it was very sprawling. And, for a capital city, there was a lot of farmland pretty close to town and not a whole lot of suburban areas. However, we only approached from one side (the east side), so maybe the growth was all on the other side.
What was great about the outskirts on the east side was that there were a lot of really nice neighborhoods with massive houses–a reminder that housing costs are pretty cheap in Nebraska–and a ton of choices for shopping and food. What was not so great was the area closest to the campus, where we were staying. It’s not that anything was super wrong with it; it just needed a little bit of uplift.
After eating lunch at one of the aforementioned ton of choices, Matt and I finally headed out to spend the afternoon in Lincoln. We parked near the student union and went to explore it first, and we were thoroughly impressed. Everything felt super modern and updated, and, again, the food choices inside were delightful. Making a stop at the book store to buy more souvenirs, we then made our way outside into the blustery, windy cold to see the rest of the campus.
Unlike Kansas, Nebraska’s main buildings were pretty spread out. What we enjoyed about this setup was the number of green spaces (or, in our case, since we were visiting during the cold season, yellow/brown spaces).
Another thing that we were honestly blown away by was Nebraska’s football stadium. It was very clean, well designed, and looming above the relatively flat campus. It was really accessible, too, instead of being set off from the rest of the buildings like some other campuses.
Even though it was frigid outside, we took our time enjoying our walk around the campus. Matt was convinced by the end of the day that the University of Nebraska was the true undiscovered gem of the Midwest.
Topping off our evening with a delicious meal at one of Lincoln’s local favorites, Lazlo’s Brewery & Grill, and a jaunt around a giant souvenir shop dedicated to the state of Nebraska, we both called ourselves fans of the area.
On the fourth day of our Midwestern adventure, we drove back in the direction of home and stopped after 5 hours to see our final destination: Columbia, Missouri. Since we didn’t have much time here, we only got to explore Mizzou’s campus for a few hours and limited ourselves to the main quad and the surrounding buildings. Plus, it was extremely cold outside, and Matt and I could feel the frostbite coming on, so we didn’t dwadle when looking around.
First, we made our way past some nice looking red-brick buildings to the student union, where we warmed up and made our way to–you guessed it–the campus bookstore. Missouri’s bookstore certainly impressed, as it was way more massive than expected. It also had an almost-suspicious amount of SEC merchandise, but that’s a conversation for another day.
After we made our usual purchases, we meandered around the student union and decided that we like the food-court vibe it had going on. The little student bar inside also reminded Matt a lot of the student pub at his own university, Exeter. Since we had just visited not even a few months earlier, I knew exactly what he was reminiscing about!
Next, we braved the cold and walked to see the English building. For some reason, the bushes in front of it greatly amused me…
I was generally pleased with the building’s upkeep, as many English buildings on college campuses are pretty much the dumps of the university. Matt especially liked the red color of most of the buildings and the uniformity of the architecture around campus, and we both adored the main green space next to the law building. It had a typical “college quad” feel and rested on a lovely hill with a great view of the auditorium behind it.
Though we couldn’t visit much more of the campus before jumping in the car to warm up and grab a classic Cane’s drive-thru dinner, we did really enjoy the places we were able to see. The town itself wasn’t our favorite (it’s not much of a looker to drive into), but it had a small-town kind of charm to it all the same.
Completely tuckered out from our travels, Matt and I crashed early that last night and woke up the next day ready to finally make our way home. But–of course–we couldn’t do it without stopping at Matt’s favorite US monument and grabbing an epic picture for our “complete all the states” map. It was the perfect way to top off an incredible trip, and by the time we got back to Urbana we were already planning our next one (no really, check back in May to read about more Midwestern adventures…).
Dream in Blue & Green 