Indiana vs Iowa

[ColdAilment]

Originally Posted by Serious Conversation

True.

The problem with the outdoors in Indiana (I'm less familiar with NWI) is that most of the jobs and people are in metro Indianapolis. Even Shades and Turkey Run are well over an hour away. Bloomington and Brown County Park are close to an hour and a half too. The Hoosier National Forest is beyond that. Brown County gave me a "small taste" of being back home.

If you were to actually live close to these areas, it would be better. Still, Iowa doesn't have anything quite like Brown County or the lakeshore.

I kind of look at that as a good thing. The nature preserves/state parks and outdoorsy activities should be away from the highly populated areas. I like that the most scenic areas of the state are mostly untouched by people and real estate developers. Indiana is a small enough state that most parks are easily within driving distance of the state's residents, it's a little about 4 hours from south to north driving if I remember correctly. The people in Indianapolis are perfectly centrally located between the lake shore, and Brown County/Turkey Run/Shades/Clifty Falls etc. The area immediately around Indianapolis is rather boring, but they aren't too far from some very scenic green space, I hope it stays that way.


I am not familiar with Iowa's state parks at all, I only know a few areas of eastern Iowa, and what the posters on here and other threads have shared.

[Phil P]

Thanks for the replies guys! It is a shame these pretty areas aren't closer to where the people are, but they do look very pretty if you like green. Even in Colorado though on the front range, it's often 45-90 minutes to get to recreation in national forest. Indiana does look like it has more closer by because the driftless are a ways from the population centers of Iowa, ex Dubuque.