Travel guide to planning a vacation or trip to Iowa, including top tourist attractions.
Most people probably don't think of traveling to Iowa for a vacation unless they have family in the area, but there is a lot to see, do and explore in the state of Iowa, from exploring historic villages to wandering the plains and exploring Midwestern city life.
Iowa is perhaps best known as the home of America's 31st president, Herbert Hoover, but vice president Henry A. Wallace and first lady Mamie Eisenhower also called Iowa home. (Other famous Iowans include Buffalo Bill Cody, John Wayne, Donna Reed, Glenn Miller and Meredith Wilson, composer of The Music Man.)
The heart of the state is its capital, Des Moines, also the state's largest city at just under 200,000 people. The city features the Des Moines art center, a museum focusing on art works from the 19th century to the present, home also to a restaurant with a spectacular view of the museum's reflecting pool. The city also boasts an opera company, play house and a symphony if you're into high-brow entertainment, and Adventureland amusement park and a water park known as White Water University if you're not.
The Science Center of Iowa offers a hands-on learning experience for young and old (as well as an IMAX theater) and Living History Farms offers a walk through the past, featuring a 1700 Ioway Indian farm, an 1850s homestead, a 1900 horse-powered farm and an 1875 town, to name a few of the attractions. With an emphasis on the agrarian history of the state, Living History Farms offers many hands-on activities throughout the year.
The state capitol building, featuring a spectacular golden dome, is open to the public, as is the stunning Terrace Hill governor's mansion, featuring beautiful stained glass and noted as one of the best examples of Victorian-era architecture in the United States. And if you happen to be in the state during mid-August, you won't want to miss the Iowa State Fair, one of the most popular state fairs in the nation, featuring competitions on everything from quilt making to bee keeping, the fattest pig in the state and, of course, the fabled butter sculptures.
If your trip to Iowa takes you to Des Moines, a short side trip will allow you to visit Ames, home to Iowa State University, the Iowa Arboretum and the Maime Eisenhower birthplace. Reiman Gardens at Iowa State is the largest public garden in the state, featuring 11 gardens, including an indoor butterfly wing.
If you're a fan of Iowa's major sport, wrestling, you'll want to check out the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in nearby Newton. While there you can visit the Maytag Dairy Farm, home of the famous Maytag Blue cheese.
Due west from Newton you will find the Amana colonies, a collection of villages settled by German immigrants in the mid-1800s. Fewer than 2,000 people live in the colonies, but they are known as a tourist destination for those looking for antiques and craft items, good German food and a trip into the past. The colonies feature a barn museum, the communal kitchen and coopershop museum and a museum of Amana history as well as shops devoted to furniture, meat, Christmas decorations and quilts.
Cedar Rapids, known as the city of five seasons, is home to the National Czech and Slovack Heritage Museum, recognizing another large group of immigrants who found their homes in the state. With an art museum, symphony and science center, this city of 120,000 offers many attractions. It's also home to Brucemore, an 1880s mansion inhabited over the years by three wealthy families before becoming a museum featuring lovely gardens and artifacts from the families that lived there.
Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa, is also home to the Old Capitol, which was the seat of government for 17 years and is the cornerstone of the University of Iowa campus. Nearby Dyersville is home to the Field of Dreams, featured in the Kevin Costner movie, as well as the charming National Farm Toy Museum.
The far western part of the state is dominated by two of the Quad Cities (the other two being in Illinois) Davenport and Bettendorf. Located on the Mississippi River (in one of the few places the river flows east to west) these lovely towns offer much in the way of recreation. The beautiful waterfront trails for walkers and bikers are not to be missed, especially in the Davenport area, where sculptures recreate Georges Seurat's painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grande Jatte.
Speaking of outdoor attractions, Dubuque, in the state's northeast region, offers all the fun on the river that the Quad Cities do, as well as such attractions as Crystal Lake Cave, a fascinating geological feature open to the public. The Cedar Valley area in George Wyth State Park near Waterloo offers long hiking and biking trails. Fort Dodge is home to Brushy Creek State Pak, as well as the Fort Museum, honoring the town's establishment as a frontier fort in 1850.
Mason City, the "River City" of The Music Man, is home to Meredith Wilson's boyhood home, as well as yet another pioneer museum and Frank Lloyd Wright's Stockman House. The city also includes a fine collection of trails and a couple of county parks.
In the state's northwest region you will find Storm Lake, a small town with a lovely lake, on which you can see sail boat regattas in the summertime. Ten parks and two campgrounds allow for plenty of enjoyment of the natural beauty of the lake. The town also features a tree museum, and a trail loops around the lake for your biking enjoyment. On weekends in the summer, the town's beautiful Harker House mansion is open for tours. The area is also home to the biggest wind farm in the world, so you'll see a lot of those big modern windmills.
Sioux City, in the far western part of the state, is at the confluence of the Missouri and Big Sioux rivers. The area is home to Lewis and Clark State Park, featuring an oxbow lake that cut off from the river, as well as more than 5,000 acres of conservation land where people can canoe, camp, swim, fish, hike and hunt. Other attractions include the Experimental Aircraft Museum, the Mid-American Air Museum and the memorial to flight 232, which crashed in Sioux City in 1989.
In the southwestern part of the state, again along the river, you will find Council Bluffs, a city rich in history, from several Lewis and Clark related sites to many other historic sites related to Mormons who settled in that area and established about 80 farming communities in the 1840s and "˜50s. It is also a city full of railroad history, from the Golden Spike monument to two railroad museums. Historic homes and trails abound, as well as one of three remaining "squirrel jails," where inmates were housed in wedge-shaped cells and the whole circle rotated, lazy Susan-style.
There is something for everyone in Iowa, whether you want to work out, learn more about the history of the Midwest or just gamble in one of the state's many casinos.
