Iowa City is a college town with outsized cultural ambitions. Home to the University of Iowa and its legendary Writers' Workshop — the oldest creative writing program in the country — the city was designated a UNESCO City of Literature in 2008, the first in the Americas.
The downtown Pedestrian Mall is the social heart: a brick-paved stretch of independent bookshops, coffee roasters, bars, and restaurants. Prairie Lights, the bookstore at the centre of the city's literary life, anchors one end of it. On summer evenings the mall fills with live music and locals spilling out of patios. The university campus bleeds into downtown seamlessly, giving the whole centre a youthful energy that most Midwestern cities this size lack — the Pentacrest with its 1842 Old Capitol sits one block off the Ped Mall.
Beyond books and bars, Iowa City has the Stanley Museum of Art, the venerable Museum of Natural History, the beautifully restored Englert Theatre, and easy access to the trails along the Iowa River and at Hickory Hill Park. Hawkeye football weekends transform the city entirely — 70,000 fans descend on Kinnick Stadium, and the tailgating starts at dawn.