Along the Devil's Backbone, the Maquoketa River cuts below one shoulder and hardwoods stack on the other. The path stays on the ridge, close enough to the river that you hear it the whole way. October is when this driftless northeast corner turns, and Backbone State Park, Iowa's oldest, is where those weekends sleep.
South Lake and Six Pine are the two campgrounds under the ridge. The Iowa DNR lists full-hookup and electric pads in those loops, plus non-electric and tent-only sites.
From Backbone the circuit heads east to Pikes Peak State Park at McGregor. A 500-foot bluff looks out on the Mississippi taking in the Wisconsin River, with Wisconsin on the far bank. The campground is on top of that bluff, and the overlook is the morning walk.
Upriver, the bear-shaped mounds at Effigy Mounds National Monument stand on the same bluff line. You walk the shapes on the ground during the day and sleep on the river at Pikes Peak, or back under the ridge at Backbone.
South of the river towns, Maquoketa Caves is the southern door into the circuit if you are coming from the middle of the state. The walk-in mouth opens onto Dancehall Cave, a passage tall enough that you stay on your feet, and the whole thing fits in an afternoon. Camp there when the caves are the overnight, then roll north to the bluffs the next morning.
Lock every Iowa state park night on this circuit before you count on the week. The pads go through the DNR overnight camping system up to three months in advance, as of September 2026. October weekends in this corner are the ones that disappear.
Farther down the Mississippi, the Pine Creek Grist Mill at Wildcat Den State Park runs a water wheel under sandstone bluffs. The overnight is primitive and non-electric, and following the river south puts you in Illinois.
The Iowa Great Lakes at Okoboji
West Okoboji is the resort lake, a CCC lodge in the shade and a swimming beach on the water, and people have been taking this week for decades. Summer is humid, and the afternoon storms are part of the stay. Gull Point State Park is the overnight on that shore, a shaded electric campground with paved roads in the trees above the beach.
July weekends at Gull Point go early, so lock that loop first. North of the lakes you are in Minnesota, and west of them is Sioux Falls.
Rathbun Lake and Honey Creek
Rathbun is the southern lake week, timbered hills on a peninsula with water on three sides. Honey Creek State Park is the overnight on that shore, and the Iowa DNR lists electric sites there on Iowa's second-largest lake.
The Corps adds four campgrounds around the same 11,000-acre reservoir, more than 700 sites as of September 2026, 85 miles southeast of Des Moines on IA-5. If you need more bunks than a campervan holds, Iowa RV rentals fit those loops.
Ledges State Park, Saylorville Lake, and Iowa State Fair week are on the Des Moines campervan page. South of Rathbun, the next state is Missouri.
The Loess Hills Scenic Byway
The Loess Hills are wind-blown ridges on Iowa's western edge, prairie on top and a look down into the Missouri River Valley from the Sunset Ridge Nature Trail. The scenic byway follows the crest, and Waubonsie State Park is the overnight it runs through. The Iowa DNR lists electric and non-electric sites there.
Preparation Canyon State Park, farther along the same hills, has ten hike-in sites with no bathrooms and no reservation system. You walk in from the trailhead if you want that ridge to yourself. Omaha is across the Missouri, and Nebraska continues west.