For more than a year, "Topeka" operated along the southeastern coast of the United States and in the West Indies, working out of Norfolk and the South Carolina ports of Charleston and Port Royal. On 16 May 1902, the gunboat cleared Port Royal and headed — via Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and San Juan, Puerto Rico to the Caribbean for a summer training cruise in the waters off Venezuela. Over the next three months, when not conducting gunnery drills, she was a frequent caller at the Venezuelan ports of Puerto Cabello and La Guaira as well as at nearby Curaçao in the Dutch West Indies. She departed Puerto Cabello on 23 August 1902 and reached Hampton Roads on 5 September. That same day, she entered the Norfolk Navy Yard for three months of repairs.