Oklahoma City literally sprang up overnight, when 10,000 settlers showed up on a single day in April 1889 as part of a historic land grab. Now Oklahoma’s largest city, it’s smack-dab in the middle of the country, equidistant from New York and L.A., and it’s an ideal place to get a huge dose of Americana.
One of your first stops should be the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, with art and exhibits about the settlement of the West and its earliest inhabitants. If you’re traveling with the kids, check out the eight-acre Science Museum Oklahoma. Art lovers should stop in at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, which boasts a giant Dale Chihuly colored-glass sculpture at the entrance.
For nightlife and the city’s best dining, go directly to the Bricktown Entertainment District, a cool collection of revamped warehouses along the Bricktown canal. You’re in cowboy country, after all, so you should probably stop in at Toby Keith’s honkytonk, I Love This Bar, for a mess o’catfish.