Discover 9 Little-Known Fall Drives

Iowa: Historic Hills Scenic Byway

Next time you're wondering where all your time goes, spend a weekend in southeast Iowa. On the 85-mile Historic Hills Scenic Byway, there's no place for urgency. Brilliant color fills valleys and rings farm fields along gravel and asphalt roads connecting the "Villages of Van Buren County."

This drive rewards travelers willing to trade numerous lodgings and restaurants for small pleasures: The curl of the Des Moines River's misty blanket at sunrise. The angle of a potter's fingers on clay. Most fall weekends find the county fairly quiet, but the annual Scenic Drive Festival swells towns like Bentonsport, Keosauqua and Bonaparte with crafters, pancake feeds, pedal tractor races and old-time medicine shows.