Nebraska - The Cornhusker State

Driving America Volume 5 · Nebraska, The Cornhusker State is the fifth installment in an independent fifty-state travel guidebook series. It is the most thorough single guide to Nebraska currently in print — and the only one written without state tourism funding, advertiser influence, or marketing-department review.

What's inside

16 destination chapters covering every part of the state, from Omaha and Lincoln to Crawford and Indian Cave State Park

6 thematic chapters on the land itself, the Indigenous nations, immigrant heritage, the historic trails, modern agriculture, and Husker football culture

8 planning chapters with a recommended 10-day itinerary, weekend trips from 4 regional cities, three budget tiers, practical information, and a verified festival calendar

25 commissioned maps and infographics — including a six-region landscape map, a Standing Bear v. Crook timeline, and the Great Platte River Road trails overlay

90+ original photographs taken on research trips between September 2024 and April 2026

What makes this guide different

The state's quiet importance is what most national travel coverage gets wrong. Nebraska crossed two million residents for the first time in 2024. Bailey Yard is the largest railroad classification yard on Earth. The Sandhills are the largest sand dune complex in the Western Hemisphere. The Ogallala Aquifer beneath the western state supports more irrigated cropland than any state in the Union. Standing Bear v. Crook, decided in Omaha in 1879, was the first federal recognition of Indigenous personhood under U.S. law. Buffalo Bill's first organized rodeo was in North Platte on July 4, 1882. Kool-Aid was invented in Hastings in 1927. The North Platte Canteen fed six million GIs between 1941 and 1946.

None of this is in most travel guides. All of it is in this one.