The Best Weekend Trips from Des Moines: A Dutch Mill Town, the Balloon Capital, and a Bluff Country Brewery Town

The best weekend trips from Des Moines are Pella (45 minutes, a Dutch town with a working grain windmill and a canal through downtown), Indianola (25 minutes, the balloon capital of Iowa), and Decorah (3 hours, a Norwegian bluff-country town with one of the country's best-regarded breweries). Two are easy day trips, and the third is worth a full weekend on its own.

Pella: the Dutch mill town

Pella was founded in 1847 by Dutch immigrants and has never been shy about the heritage. A working grain windmill stands over the town square, the Molengracht canal runs through downtown with drawbridge-style bridges, and the Pella Historical Village gathers 20-plus restored buildings, including the boyhood home of the man who designed Disneyland's Main Street.

Food is the other reason to come. Jaarsma Bakery has been making Dutch letters since 1898, and the town square is ringed with bakeries, meat markets, and a bakery-cafe culture that runs on almond paste and coffee.

The 48 hours. Saturday: the Vermeer Mill tour, the Historical Village, the square, a Dutch letter from Jaarsma. Sunday: Lake Red Rock for the trails and the overlook at the dam, then lunch before the drive back. Tulip Time, the first weekend in May, plants 300,000 tulips and brings in a parade, Dutch dancing, and crowds.

Indianola: the balloon capital

Indianola hosts the National Balloon Classic, nine days of competitive balloon flying at the end of July and into early August, when dozens of balloons launch at dawn and glow on the field at dusk. The National Balloon Museum downtown explains the sport the rest of the year, and the town square is a genuinely good small-town square.

The 48 hours. During the Classic, one night is the right call: dawn launch, afternoon at Summerset Winery, the evening balloon glow. Any other weekend, come for the museum, the square, and a quiet night, and use Indianola as the base for a Des Moines trip rather than the destination.

Decorah: the Driftless bluffs

Decorah sits in the Driftless Area, the corner of the Midwest the glaciers missed, which is why the hills are steep, the rivers run clear, and the whole town feels more like Appalachia than Iowa. Vesterheim, the Norwegian-American Museum, is the largest museum of its kind in the country, spread across a campus of historic buildings.

Outdoors, Dunning's Spring Park is a stone amphitheater and waterfall ten minutes from downtown, the Ice Cave sits under a bluff outside town, and the Upper Iowa River is a paddle-and-tube river with real current. Seed Savers Exchange, north of town, keeps a heritage farm you can walk. And Toppling Goliath Brewing put Decorah on the national beer map.

The 48 hours. Saturday: Vesterheim, Dunning's Spring, lunch downtown, afternoon on the Upper Iowa, dinner and a taproom visit. Sunday: Seed Savers or the Ice Cave, then a slow drive back through the bluffs.

Which one should you pick?

Windmills and bakeries: Pella. Balloons in late July: Indianola. A full weekend of bluffs, beer, and river: Decorah. Full itineraries are in the Des Moines escapes hub, with guides to Pella, Indianola, and Decorah.