Between the sandstone walls at Ledges State Park near Madrid in Boone County, Canyon Road and Pea's Creek share the canyon floor under ledges that rise a hundred feet over the Des Moines River. A 1930s CCC stone bridge crosses the creek in that canyon. Pull off at the bridge, then keep following the ledges.
The trails run about four miles and reach Lost Lake beyond the campground. Give them a full afternoon if you want light on the rock on the way back, then ride the High Trestle Trail from Ledges the same day. The bridge steps out over the Des Moines River valley on angled steel frames that light up after dark. Sleep on the loop so you can walk Lost Lake in the morning and drive Canyon Road again before you leave.
Every site on the campground loop is a reservation, with full-hookup, electric, and walk-to pads plus a dump station. Book a site before you book the van. Iowa DNR takes reservations March through November and closes the campground December through February. If you roll in late, Saylorville Lake is the first night, and Ledges can wait until you have a full day.
Saylorville Lake
Saylorville Lake north of Des Moines is the first-night lake weekend. Four Corps campgrounds take vans and tents on the water: Acorn Valley, Cherry Glen, Prairie Flower, and Bob Shetler. Acorn Valley and Cherry Glen sit in hardwood shade, and Prairie Flower looks out on open prairie. Boats work the harbor, and people fish the same lake the loops look at.
You can make a whole weekend of the lake without leaving the Corps loops. The paved Neal Smith Trail ties those campgrounds to Big Creek State Park and back toward the city. Big Creek has the largest swim beach in the Iowa state park system, a marina with sailboats and pontoons, and a beach concession from mid-April through mid-October, with no campground of its own.
Summer holiday weekends fill. The Corps camping page takes reservations up to 180 days in advance as of September 2026, so book the pad first, then the van. If the group needs more sleeping space than a campervan, RV rentals in Des Moines cover the same parks with longer rigs.
The Iowa State Fair
Eleven days in mid-August, the Iowa State Fair runs the Des Moines calendar. The midway and the livestock barns fill. Camper rows fill a 160-acre fairgrounds campground built for that week, on the same grounds as the barns and the midway.
Iowa State Fair camping holds permanent sites for registered campers from a multi-year waitlist. First-timers do not get a reserved pad in advance, so do not count on the fairgrounds as a walk-up first night. If the fair is why you came, treat that campground as the destination pad. Saylorville and Ledges take the spillover, and all three compete for the same vans and the same sites that week.
The driftless northeast, the Loess Hills, and the Iowa Great Lakes at Okoboji are Iowa campervan trips, farther than a Des Moines overnight.