K-177 runs with grass on both shoulders and nothing ahead but the next limestone hill. That blacktop between Cassoday and Council Grove is the Flint Hills Scenic Byway, and Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve at Strong City is where you stop and walk, bison working the slope in front of the three-level 1882 limestone barn and the 1881 ranch house. From the ranch you walk into grass that does not end at a fence, and Lower Fox Creek Schoolhouse is the small white building on a hill. The herd is a dark line against all that green, and Cottonwood Falls still shows the 1873 courthouse dome when you come into town. Matfield Green is only a blink on K-177 before the hills open again.
The preserve is day use, and the NPS preserve page lists no campground there. You sleep at Chase State Fishing Lake, free and first-come on the north shore west of Cottonwood Falls. If those spots are taken, El Dorado State Park is the reservable fallback toward Wichita.
NPS directions run US-54/US-400 east of Wichita, then K-177, about 85 miles in all, with no shoulder on that 60-mph approach. Summer is sun and wind with no shade on that road, and by October the same grass has gone bronze.
Spring is burn season, and the green-up after a fire is when the grass looks new. The preserve hours page warns that prescribed fire and bison operations can close trails without notice, and a tornado watch that same season changes where you sleep that night.
El Dorado State Park
Wind chops El Dorado Reservoir into whitecaps under the sandstone of Boulder Bluff, 8,000 acres of open water you can watch weather cross. This is the largest campground in the Kansas state park system, on US-54 off the Turnpike, and it is the first night people take on the way to the Flint Hills.
Plenty of Wichita weekends never leave this water. You fish and swim off the same shoreline you sleep on, and in the morning you can still be on K-177 toward Strong City if the prairie is the rest of the trip.
Bluestem Point is the reservable loop on the El Dorado State Park page, with water, electric, and some sewer hookups. Shady Creek is first-come overflow, and you lock a Bluestem pad before you book the van on a busy weekend. If you need more sleeping space than a van bunk on those hookup sites, Kansas RV rentals fit the longer stays.
Cheney State Park
Sailboats heel over on Cheney Reservoir because there are no trees to break the wind, just a hard horizon of water west of Wichita. Summer is sailing season on that open bowl, the close reservoir weekend from town. West Shore is the utility campground, water and electric, on US-54. Winter camping stays open as self-pay and first-come, with the water off at most loops, per Cheney State Park.
June crowds downtown for Wichita Riverfest, nine days on the Arkansas River, string lights on the bank and the Keeper of the Plains lit after dark. There is no camping on the festival grounds, so those nights stay in town.
Clinton Lake and Kansas Speedway race weekends belong to Kansas City, Kansas. Western Kansas and the rest of the state belong on Kansas campervan trips.