Iowa's Historic Hills Scenic Byway
On the 110-mile Historic Hills Scenic Byway, brilliant color fills valleys and rings farm fields along gravel and asphalt roads connecting the Villages of Van Buren County.
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Tiny and quaint, 1800s ports line the Des Moines River in southeast Iowa. Hike or canoe in Lacey-Keosauqua State Park, pictured below, or take a leisurely journey through the area on the Historic Hills Scenic Byway. Most weekends find the county fairly quiet, but the annual Scenic Drive Festival in October swells towns such as Bentonsport, Keosauqua and Bonaparte (each with populations of 1,000 or fewer) with crafters, pancake feeds, pedal tractor races and old-time medicine shows.
For maps and trip planning