Weird & unusual things to do in Des Moines
The genuinely offbeat side of Des Moines: 84 hand-vetted hidden spots — oddity shops, hidden bars, haunted history, sound baths, weird outdoor finds — built for an unusual date night, a weird afternoon, or showing a visitor a side of the city they'd never find alone. Like The Atlas Room, The Haunt, Drake Municipal Observatory. Local secrets even locals miss — you didn't hear it from us.
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The Atlas Room
West Des Moines' newest speakeasy is hidden inside Serenity Couture Salon & Spa in the old Wells Fargo buildi…
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The Haunt
Billed as the only bar in the world inside a haunted-attraction space, The Haunt is a speakeasy tucked in the…
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Drake Municipal Observatory
A 1921 limestone observatory hidden inside a public golf course, where the cremated ashes of astronomer Danie…
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South Des Moines Sculpture Park
A self-built roadside art environment that locals call 'a poor man's Pappajohn's' — about 18 homemade sculptu…
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Ratt's Underground Records
Buried in the east end of Merle Hay Mall, Des Moines's oldest and emptiest mall, this is described as one of…
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Ecstatic Dance Des Moines
A substance-free, no-talking dance gathering held in a real ballroom studio tucked behind Gateway Market, whe…
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Kays Spiritual Ways
A tiny owner-run metaphysical shop tucked at the corner of 5th & Euclid in Highland Park, created by Kayla Ca…
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Ancient Ways
An eclectic 'ancient mysteries' shop on University Ave near Drake, open since 1997, packed with ethnic drums,…
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CUUPS Sacred Bridges (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans)
An earth-centered Pagan worship group profiled by Drake University's Comparison Project, meeting for the full…
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Inner Space — ZeroBody Dry Float & Salt Lounge
A 6,000-sq-ft clinical 'gym for your insides' whose strangest offering is the ZeroBody Dry Float: you stay fu…
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CENTER ME NOW
A tucked-away holistic studio in a suburban office park that runs immersive Wednesday-evening sound baths and…
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Enchanted (Enchanted Mystical Boutique)
A family-owned New Age boutique on Ingersoll billed as home to 'Des Moines' only Tarot Salon,' where readings…
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Curioso Antiques & Uniquities
A Beaverdale house quietly converted into an antiques-and-oddities shop where owners Matt and Shawna lean int…
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Good News, Darling
A tiny, moody, no-signage cocktail parlor hidden directly behind Hello, Marjorie. With only 26 seats and its…
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Ken's - a not so secret speakeasy
Named for 1920s Des Moines society bootlegger Kenneth Sonderleiter, Ken's hides in the basement under the Iow…
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Alleged Lee's
A funky little East Village speakeasy decorated with art from Iowa's Prohibition years and anchored by an orn…
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In Confidence
A blind-tiger speakeasy in the basement of the historic Hotel Fort Des Moines. The entrance is the trick: a c…
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The Dust Collective
An artist-run 'neighborhood clubhouse' of curated vintage, antiques, handmade goods and ice-cold soda pop tha…
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'Nature's Algorithm' Augmented-Reality Mural by Leon Keer
An 8,000+ sq ft hyper-realistic mural by Dutch street artist Leon Keer depicting Iowa landscapes playing on a…
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Woodland Cemetery — City Receiving Vault & Baby Hill
Des Moines' oldest cemetery, established in 1848 on land donated by five farmers, holds more than 80,000 grav…
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Valley Junction's Hidden Red-Light History (5th Street)
Today's tidy antique-and-gift district along 5th Street was, after its 1893 founding as a busy railroad switc…
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Skylabs
A vintage hi-fi temple tucked into Historic Valley Junction that reimagines stereo shopping from the golden e…
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Divine Times Vintage
Two floors of rotating vintage vendors in up-and-coming Highland Park, built around owner Jerrica Yasumura's…
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Heartland Sound Healing (Gong Bath)
A roving sound-healing practitioner who stages immersive gong baths using a symphonic gong plus Tibetan and c…
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Huston Cemetery
A tiny pioneer graveyard of about 11 graves, established 1847, that became locally legendary for sitting maro…
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Goldeneye Curations
An East Village vintage and streetwear shop that grew from a single retail rack inside outdoor store Stoked i…
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de Kelder Speakeasy
de Kelder ("the basement" in Dutch) is a genuine Roaring Twenties-style speakeasy tucked beneath a downtown P…
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High Trestle Trail Bridge
A soaring half-mile former railroad trestle bridge 13 stories above the Des Moines River, wrapped in 43 twist…
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Kate Shelley High Bridge
The Kate Shelley High Bridge is a soaring 185-foot-tall, 2,685-foot-long double-track railroad viaduct comple…
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Boone County Historical Society (former Masonic Temple)
The 1907 Champlin Memorial Masonic Temple — now the Boone History Center — is a legitimately operating county…
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Communal Kitchen Museum
The Ruedy Küche (1863) is the only fully intact communal kitchen surviving from the Amanas' collective era, p…
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Granny Sprague Cemetery
Officially renamed the Niles-Sprague Pioneer Cemetery, this is reputedly "Iowa's Smallest Cemetery" — a singl…
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National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum
This non-profit museum sits right beside the legendary Knoxville Raceway and puts 30-35 winged open-wheel spr…
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Louis Sullivan 'Jewel Box' Bank (Merchants' National Bank)
Built in 1914, this National Historic Landmark is one of Louis Sullivan's celebrated "jewel box" banks — a pl…
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Jasper County Historical Museum
Newton's Jasper County Historical Museum is a legitimately peculiar shrine to the appliance that built the to…
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Joy the Movie Theater Pig (Capitol II Theatre)
The Capitol II Theatre is a family-owned, two-screen movie house where Joy, a Guinness World Record-holding m…
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Big Aluminum Bugs
A local farmer welded giant cast-aluminum insects — including a towering praying mantis — from recycled hog f…
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Henry Moore's Mini-Americana Barn Museum
Housed in an 1876 horse barn in South Amana, the Henry Moore Barn Museum holds over 200 hand-crafted miniatur…
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Harmon Tunnel at Pammel State Park
The Harmon Tunnel is Iowa's only auto tunnel — a 150-foot passage hand-dug through a solid limestone ridge in…
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Clark Tower
Clark Tower is a genuine 25-foot limestone castle-tower built in 1926, reached by a one-way, one-lane gravel…
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Cellar 626
Tucked behind the beer cooler at Cyclone Liquors on Lincoln Way, Cellar 626 has no sign, no street presence,…
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Highland Underground
Tucked into the basement of the former Klein's Department Store — a Highland Park institution that closed dec…
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Briar Patch Amphitheater
A Deadhead who followed the Grateful Dead through 80+ shows came home to rural Iowa and carved a natural-bowl…
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Matchstick Marvels Museum
Somewhere in a town of ~1,000 people on the Iowa prairie, a retired art teacher named Patrick Acton has been…
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In Spyrit Metaphysical (& Des Moines Paranormal)
A metaphysical supply shop co-owned and staffed by the founders of Des Moines Paranormal, an active spirit-re…
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Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption
The world's largest man-made grotto: a full city block of nine hand-built caverns that one obsessed priest sp…
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The Haunted Bookshop
Iowa's largest used bookshop, 40,000+ rare and out-of-print titles crammed floor-to-ceiling into an atmospher…
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Buxton Historic Townsite & Cemetery
The vanished site of Buxton, a 1900-1920s coal town of ~5,000 that was a rare, thriving racially-integrated c…
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National Hobo Museum
A one-of-a-kind single-subject museum devoted to hobo culture and the open road, housed in a former 1920s mov…
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Wonderland Apothecary at Groovy Goods
A full herbal apothecary tucked inside Groovy Goods, a vintage hippie shop two blocks from Drake University,…
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Fjord Færgemand (Dambo Troll)
A 25-foot wooden troll standing in a boat with an oar carved from a downed tree, built from reclaimed materia…
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Paradox Antiques, Art, & Oddities
An eccentric Victorian-era curiosity shop where collector Matthew Parsons deliberately juxtaposes light and d…
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JJ Gaffers Glass Blowing Studio
A working hot shop tucked into the lower level of Mainframe Studios, the country's largest nonprofit arts cam…
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Malone Forgotten Arts (Greg Malone Blacksmithing)
Greg Malone has taught blacksmithing out of his Des Moines home forge since 1984 and also dabbles in flintkna…
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Indianola Glass Creations
A small-town glass shop on the Indianola square, about 18 miles (roughly 25 minutes) south of downtown Des Mo…
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Des Moines Art Center Studios - Metals & Jewelry Ring Making
The Art Center's Studio School runs short metalsmithing workshops in its dedicated metals studio where you fa…
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Iowa Ceramics Center & Glass Studio
A community ceramics and warm-glass studio in the historic Cherry Building offering wheel throwing and fused-…
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Emily MacFarland Ceramics
Working potter Emily MacFarland teaches small adult wheel-throwing groups (usually three to six students) out…
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PepperHarrow Farm
A family-run lavender and cut-flower farm in the Madison County countryside where Jenn O'Neal runs a Botanica…
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By Wysteria
A small by-appointment maker's studio near Drake University offering candle, perfume, and cold-process soap c…
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Candle Bar DSM
A pour-your-own candle bar tucked into Historic Valley Junction with a fragrance wall of more than 100 scents…
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World Oddities Expo — Taxidermy & Pinning Classes
Once a year the World Oddities Expo rolls into the Iowa Events Center with a roster of genuinely strange hand…
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Kitchen Collage
A long-running cookware shop in the East Village that runs a steady calendar of hands-on cooking and baking c…
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Glazed Expressions
A family-owned drop-in art studio in the Des Moines metro (flagship in Clive, second location in Ankeny), ope…
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Monsterama Pubcade
A horror-themed pubcade tucked into a strip on SW 9th, where the draw is a wall of pinball that leans into th…
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The Operating Room
Founded by a local orthopedic hand surgeon, this medical-themed barcade puts bartenders in scrubs and covers…
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Backpocket Pin & Pixel
A craft brewery taproom in Johnston Town Center that pairs its in-house beer with a retro arcade and a row of…
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Up-Down Des Moines
An 80s/90s-themed arcade bar in the East Village where 60-plus classic cabinets, six skee-ball alleys and pin…
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Old School Arcade (Grimes)
The original location of an Iowa-grown arcade that stocks dozens of vintage pinball machines alongside classi…
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Time Out Ames
A downtown Ames barcade with about ten pinball machines and a wall of retro arcade cabinets, plus pool and we…
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The Operating Room - Pinball Bar Arcade
A pinball barcade founded by a local orthopedic hand surgeon, leaning hard into a medical gag: bartenders pou…
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Monsterama Arcade
A monster-movie-themed pubcade where the gaming and the decor lean into classic horror, anchored by pinball t…
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Rook Room Game Lounge & Cafe
A downtown board-game lounge, cafe, and bar where you can play from a wall of more than 1,000 board games, pu…
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Escape Chambers Des Moines
Billed as the first live escape room in Des Moines, this downtown spot runs movie-inspired rooms across horro…
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Ashton Observatory (Des Moines Astronomical Society)
A volunteer-run county-park observatory with two domes, a 16-inch Newtonian reflector and a 14-inch Schmidt-C…
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Annett Nature Center observation tower
A 160-acre Warren County nature preserve on a hillside ringed by farmland, with a 30-foot observation tower t…
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Full Moon Hike at Fort Des Moines Park
Polk County Conservation leads a Full Moon Night Hike through Fort Des Moines Park, walking the trails after…
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Iowa Star Party at Whiterock Conservancy
Whiterock Conservancy is a 5,500-acre nonprofit land trust along seven miles of the Middle Raccoon River vall…
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Star Parties at the Science Center of Iowa
The Science Center of Iowa runs free Solar and Star Parties where staff and volunteers set up high-powered te…
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Valle Drive-In
Iowa's oldest drive-in, running since 1949, sits about 30 miles east of Des Moines and still throws double fe…
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Candlelight Concerts at the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates
A string quartet plays Coldplay, Queen, Metallica or Vivaldi by the glow of thousands of flickering LED candl…
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Sherman Hill Historic Gaslight Ghost Tour
A nighttime walking tour through Des Moines' oldest neighborhood, lit by gaslight, that strings together roug…
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Ashton Observatory Public Saturday Nights
Run by the Des Moines Astronomical Society inside a dark-sky county park northeast of the metro, Ashton opens…
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Dome After Dark at Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden
On winter Friday evenings, the Botanical Garden's geodesic-dome conservatory stays open after hours with the…
Unusual things to do in Des Moines — FAQ
What are some unusual things to do in Des Moines?
84 hand-vetted weird spots — like The Atlas Room, The Haunt, Drake Municipal Observatory — plus oddity shops, hidden bars, haunted history, sound baths, and offbeat outdoor finds. Every one is real and sourced, not a top-ten landmark.
Where can you go for a weird date night in Des Moines?
Try The Atlas Room, The Haunt, Drake Municipal Observatory — strange-but-real spots that make a memorable date. Filter by neighborhood, vibe, or how far you'll drive: in town, nearby, or a day trip.
What's a weird thing to do in Des Moines tonight or this weekend?
For tonight, filter to "in town" and low-key picks; for the weekend, the day-trip ring opens up genuinely strange spots a short drive out. Start with The Atlas Room, The Haunt, Drake Municipal Observatory — and sort by how far you're willing to go.
Are there free or cheap weird things to do in Des Moines?
Yes — 50 Des Moines spots are free or low-cost, like Drake Municipal Observatory, South Des Moines Sculpture Park, Ratt's Underground Records. Roadside oddities, public art, and outdoor curiosities usually cost nothing.
How is this different from the usual Des Moines tourist lists?
We skip the landmarks everyone knows. An agentic research system digs up the genuinely hidden, offbeat spots — the local secrets even locals miss — and verifies each against real sources before it makes the list.