Frommer's Names Kansas City a Top Destination for 2012 (St. Louis, Independence: best cities, how much)

[jaxontwinz]

Frommer's named KC one of the best places IN THE WORLD to visit in 2012:


Read more: Kansas City, Missouri - Top Destinations 2012 at Frommer's

They praised the Performing Arts Center, calling it one of the most technically advanced performing arts centers in the country. They loved the WWI Museum, the Nelson-Atkins, and the P&L District. They also mentioned the barbecue.

Surprising they didn't mention the Plaza. I think we should be very proud of our city to receive such an honor. Believe it or not, it is still an achievement and will give Kansas City some notoriety. So is KC now a top destination?

Your thoughts?

[Blue Earth]

I'm very impressed by this. Frommer's is one of the most well-known and respected travel publications, and this is their official Top 10 destinations for 2012. It is very impressive to have Frommer's list Kansas City with places like this:

Bay of Fundy
Beirut
Chongqing
Curacao
Fukuoka
Ghana
Girona
Greenwich, London
Kansas City
Yucatan Peninsula

This is not like the random Forbes or CNN lists of "best cities". Frommer's has travel writers who know these places.

I think it shows that there are still some writers who are not afraid to recommend cities that are not uber-trendy. It gets old recommending trendy cities like Denver, Seattle, Portland, Austin, Taos, etc. or just going with the old stand-by's like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. It makes them look smart to recommend a less-trendy city.

It also makes the extreme negativity on this board from users like kcmo seem myopic and infantile. No one at Frommer's is like, "We can't recommend Kansas City because some of their jobs are moving two miles across the state line" or "Kansas City can't get it together because Kansas suburbs have no pride in the city". It just shows how ignorant and baseless that type of rhetoric is. I've said that numerous times. I'm sick of the negativity that is based on nothing but someone's experiences working in some random office park in Overland Park for a few months.

[recycled]

I live in Southern Cal, and was on a visit to KC for a few days in September. I was surprised at how impressive KC was. And it was more than just a couple of impressive things.

On a Friday evening, I was floored at how many people were out and about on the streets and in the restaurants, bars and stores in the Country Club Plaza area. It was near perfect weather at the time, and that probably got a lot of people out, but it was still remarkable. I liked the downtown area and riverfront areas, a great variety of old and new architecture. Good looking farmers market down by the riverfront. Lots of good arts + entertainment venues. KC is not all flatland, the downtown is much hillier that I expected.

KC sure has a lot of fountains around the parks and in the city. You may take that for granted, but here in arid southern California, particulary in Orange County, ornate European inspired fountains in green city parks full of trees are pretty rare.

I went to the Truman home and museum in Independence, the WW1 museum / memorial and the Negro Leagues baseball museum. I ran out of time to visit other places, but KC far exceeded my expectations. People who lump KC with stereotype images of "flyover country" are missing out.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by Blue Earth

I'm very impressed by this. Frommer's is one of the most well-known and respected travel publications, and this is their official Top 10 destinations for 2012. It is very impressive to have Frommer's list Kansas City with places like this:

Bay of Fundy
Beirut
Chongqing
Curacao
Fukuoka
Ghana
Girona
Greenwich, London
Kansas City
Yucatan Peninsula

This is not like the random Forbes or CNN lists of "best cities". Frommer's has travel writers who know these places.

I think it shows that there are still some writers who are not afraid to recommend cities that are not uber-trendy. It gets old recommending trendy cities like Denver, Seattle, Portland, Austin, Taos, etc. or just going with the old stand-by's like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. It makes them look smart to recommend a less-trendy city.

It also makes the extreme negativity on this board from users like kcmo seem myopic and infantile. No one at Frommer's is like, "We can't recommend Kansas City because some of their jobs are moving two miles across the state line" or "Kansas City can't get it together because Kansas suburbs have no pride in the city". It just shows how ignorant and baseless that type of rhetoric is. I've said that numerous times. I'm sick of the negativity that is based on nothing but someone's experiences working in some random office park in Overland Park for a few months.

Why bring me up then? You have no idea how much I push KC do you? I think it's awesome that kcmo is such a cool city DESPITE the state line issues. BTW, I have already posted this link in several threads talking up KC, where are you? in some sports forum talking about the jayhawks? cause I never see you in those threads unless it's to rip me when just because I like some cities better than KC. "A few months"....Try 25 years of being extremely active in the KC community.

Just remember, YOU started this...You really did not need to bring this up in this thread. Just like you didn’t need to ruin my sticky “what is there to do in KC” thread. KC has issues like any city that should not be ignored and should be discussed and addressed. I’m going to rip on Kansas for poaching kcmo companies in a thread that is ABOUT that. But I would never come into a thread like this and do what you did and have done many times. You ignore the real issues or try to justify them and them come into threads like this and try to make me look like the bad guy. Nice work.

We are adults here. We should be able to discuss kc's problems and keep them separate from the many positives of the city.

Good going Kansas City, MISSOURI, you made a respected list and it’s well deserved.

[aragx6]

That doesn't even make any sense -- kcmo has never said KC sucks and you shouldn't visit it.There's a lot of things that make it a place I don't want to live in for the long haul. Those are entirely different things.

[RjRobb2]

Originally Posted by recycled

KC is not all flatland,

Kansas City isnt flat at all. I cannot really think of many places that you can find more than a 1/2 mile of flat space. It is basically all hills everywhere. It is the hilliest place I have ever been.

Contrary to popular believe, Kansas is not a flat state at all and Missouri definitely isnt. Kansas is the 22nd flattest state in the country.

[brewcrew1000]

Originally Posted by RjRobb2

Contrary to popular believe, Kansas is not a flat state at all and Missouri definitely isnt. Kansas is the 22nd flattest state in the country.

We should all start making fun of Florida, i bet most people don't realize it's the flattest state in the US. I think the highest elevation in Florida is like 500 feet.

[kcmo]

Why does everybody think KS is so flat? Never understood that and yes, metro KC is one of the hilliest major cities or at least in the top 3rd. Most major cities are flat. Denver, Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago, Indy, OKC, Miami etc etc all super flat.

[aragx6]

^Chicago is mad flat -- awesome for commuting by bike, but really wildly depressing for a born-and-bred Missourian like me when you get outside the city limits.

[Blue Earth]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Why bring me up then? You have no idea how much I push KC do you? I think it's awesome that kcmo is such a cool city DESPITE the state line issues. BTW, I have already posted this link in several threads talking up KC, where are you? in some sports forum talking about the jayhawks? cause I never see you in those threads unless it's to rip me when just because I like some cities better than KC. "A few months"....Try 25 years of being extremely active in the KC community.

Just remember, YOU started this...You really did not need to bring this up in this thread. Just like you didn’t need to ruin my sticky “what is there to do in KC” thread. KC has issues like any city that should not be ignored and should be discussed and addressed. I’m going to rip on Kansas for poaching kcmo companies in a thread that is ABOUT that. But I would never come into a thread like this and do what you did and have done many times. You ignore the real issues or try to justify them and them come into threads like this and try to make me look like the bad guy. Nice work.

We are adults here. We should be able to discuss kc's problems and keep them separate from the many positives of the city.

Good going Kansas City, MISSOURI, you made a respected list and it’s well deserved.

I'm going to bring up your negativity about the KC metro area in a thread that is about others recognizing KC, because it is relevant. Obviously, your myopic point of view that KC is struggling mightily due to no-pride-in-the-city-having Kansas suburbanites is not a view shared by the writers at Frommer's. Thankfully, they don't read this forum. Because if they did, they would not have chosen KC. They would have been soured by your constant negativity.

25 years active in the KC community, but I know from reading you that you didn't start bashing Kansas until you had a job in some office park in Overland Park for a few months/years in the 2000s.

If you can find the data, you should look up private spending from Johnson County to Kansas City, Missouri. Look at where the big money comes from to support institutions in the city, the plaza, downtown, midtown. I bet you would find that Johnson County residents contribute more money and support to the major institutions in the city than any other part of the metro. I just despise your viewpoint that residents on the Kansas side don't have pride in the city or don't support the city. I think it is complete malarkey and is not backed up by the facts.

Another data point you could look into is migration between Kansas City, Missouri and Johnson County going back to the post-war era. You will see that a large percentage of Kansas suburbanites were themselves Kansas City, Missourians with deep roots in the city and have pride in the city because that's where their ancestors came from. Same thing as St. Louis county residents having roots in STL city. But for some reason, you like to think that Johnson County residents are mostly from rural Kansas, which is not backed up by the facts. It was mostly city residents who moved to JoCo.

You wonder why I bring this up, it's because you are spreading non-sense constantly. Stop spreading non-sense and I won't bring it up. You are hard-headed as well, and anything that I say you act like you didn't hear it. Look up those two data points. Seriously, look them up. Private spending from Johnson County residents supporting city institutions and how many Johnson County residents have family roots in the city. You should be ashamed with your constant droning on about how people on the Kansas side don't support the city. Some of the city's most generous philanthropists live on the Kansas side.