Waterways
Dubuque & the Mississippi
A river with many stories.
Explore this stop →
A WTDO FIELD GUIDE · IOWA
Follow the river. Find the stories between fields.
The Mississippi, baseball, communal villages and living farm history make Iowa far more than scenery seen through a windshield.
Find your storyExplore the map ↓Great River Road, Field of Dreams, Amana and farming history.
The Mississippi, baseball, communal villages and living farm history make Iowa far more than scenery seen through a windshield.
Find your reason to go
6 ways into Iowa.
Choose a scene. The map and guide follow your curiosity.
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Waterways
Dubuque & the Mississippi
A river with many stories.
Begin at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque.
Go deeper →Photo: Billwhittaker at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 ↗Photo credits for every scene
- Dubuque & the Mississippi · Photo: Billwhittaker at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 ↗
- Field of Dreams · Photo: Jana Taylor · CC BY-SA 3.0 ↗
- Amana Colonies · Photo: Kepper66 at en.wikipedia · Public domain ↗
- Living History Farms · Photo: Dennis Bratland · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗
- Des Moines & Iowa State Fair · Photo: John Edwards · CC BY-SA 2.0 ↗
- Effigy Mounds · Photo: Jokrasinski · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗
Explore by instinct
Choose a place, see where it lives.
Tap a marker, filter the kind of day, or reveal the land beneath the route.
Outline: U.S. Census Bureau. Optional shaded relief: USGS The National Map. Pins mark starting areas, not a driving route.
Stay longer
Make space for the taste and the backstory.
Find a market, family-style Amana meal, or a river-town restaurant that connects your drive to local farms.
Explore local food ↗Iowa’s farms and river towns are living communities; museums can help connect food, settlement, labor and ecology rather than flattening the state into a postcard.
Check this year’s official events ↗Your trip, your way
Keep the idea. Build the day when you are ready.
Ask WTDO to connect the places you chose to a route that fits your time and interests.
Plan a Iowa tripYour next good stop.
Find published places to eat, stay, explore or rent something for the day. Own a business? Add your details and verify your business contact; paid promotion is optional.