Mississippi Valley Traveler

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What the Heck is This?
About This Site
About My Picks

What the Heck is This?
I’m on a mission. I’m exploring the culture and history of the Mississippi River from the Headwaters to the Gulf. It’s my obsession. I started this project in 2007 by spending a couple of days in the Quad Cities in January (yes, you can travel along the river in winter). This led to more days in the Quad Cities, which led to weeks along the river north of the Quad Cities, which led to the passage of a couple of years and the publication of my first two travel guides: the Quad Cities Travel Guide and the guide to the river between Lansing and Le Claire. You can read more about them here. I will eventually publish  guide books for the entire Mississippi River Valley; watch for two more books in 2010. I also write shorter pieces about the river for other outlets. Last year I published articles in Big River Magazine about the legacy of the 1930s-era public works projects along the river and the architecture of the missionary priest Father Samuel Mazzuchelli.

For a tongue-in-cheek look at life on the road for a travel writer, check out the video below:
 

This site is has the lowdown on travel along the Mississippi River. It’s a work in progress. Right now it includes guides on every Mississippi Valley town from the Quad Cities north to Lansing, Iowa on both banks of the Mississippi River. This just happens to be the same territory covered in the two Mississippi Valley Traveler Guide Books: Quad Cities Travel Guide and Lansing to LeClaire Travel Guide. Yea, I’ll keep working on those titles.

Below, I explain my approach to researching this information. The on-line guide has much of the information as the print guides, just less. The print guides include additional sections (shopping and more entertainment options), and they also include operating hours plus prices and fees.

If you’d like to know more about my experiences on the road, I also write a blog that highlights outstanding sites, good stories, and the wacky things that sometimes happen to me while away from home. I want to make this site useful (and I hope to convince you that you must take a trip along the Mississippi River), so please don’t be shy with the comments.

About This Site
I have a touch of attitude when it comes to travel. I want to get away from the familiar. I am not a fan of chain stores, malls, mass consumption, or mass marketing. If all you want to do on vacation is lie on the beach, sip apple-tinis, and shop at Eddie Bauer; if you buy all your art at the Pottery Barn; if your idea of a nice meal is the grilled chicken platter at TGI Fridays, then this site may not be much help to you. Sure, you can find national brands along the River Road—if that’s what you need—but why not take a chance and try something that hasn’t been focus grouped and mass marketed to the lowest common denominator? Why not sample some local flavor with a hand-crafted beer at the Potosi Brewery? Why not treat yourself to the homey atmosphere of a bed-and-breakfast? Relax, slow down, hang out, talk to people. That’s my prescription for enjoying travel anywhere, and it will be very rewarding along the River Road.

About My Picks
No one paid me a cent to get a listing on this site. No one gave me a free meal or free place to stay in exchange for a listing. The recommendations in this book, for better or for worse, are based upon my judgment of what is good, interesting, fascinating, or just worthy of your time.

Restaurants
Look, I can’t possibly eat at every single restaurant that might be good. I don’t have time for it; I can’t afford it; and I don’t want to look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, again. That’s just the way it goes. Restaurants get on my radar screen through recommendations from locals and visitors. I also pay attention to the places that are always busy. If I don’t eat at a particular restaurant, I stop by anyway to check out the visuals and to look over a menu. If a restaurant is busy and locals speak highly of it, I’ll put it in the book, even if I don’t get a chance to taste their food personally. Feel free to set me straight if you disagree with my restaurant picks.

Bars
My preferences tend toward dives and brewpubs, which are both over-represented in this book. Along the River Road, you will find outstanding brewpubs and dozens if not hundreds of friendly neighborhood taverns. Let me know your favorites. Maybe we’ll meet there for a drink, especially if you’re buying.

Accommodations
I personally visited every accommodation listed in this book. If a place exists, and it’s not in this book, it either means I didn’t care for the place or my attempts to set up a visit were not successful, and, believe, me, I was very accommodating in my attempts to visit. Oh, I guess one or two places actually told me that they didn’t want to be included; who am I to deny their request to turn down free advertising? I have included a wide range of accommodation options, from campgrounds to bed-and-breakfasts to luxury hotels. My bias is to support independent motels, inns, and bed-and-breakfasts. (Although I provide some info for chain hotels in the print guides, I have chosen not to do so on this website. I assume you know how to use an on-line search engine like hotels.com if you really need to find a room at a chain hotel.) Also, I assume you know that budget motels are a mixed bag. Some are noisy; rooms are not always of consistent quality; and sometimes they get bad reputations, although often for reasons that are greatly exaggerated. But, they usually have the most affordable rates. If all you want is a cheap place to sleep, budget motels should suit you fine. If a little dirt and a few truck drivers scare you, however, you should probably stay somewhere else. So there, you’ve been warned.

© Dean Klinkenberg, 2009