Newton woman creates Adventure Bottles and activity book highlighting Iowa landmarks and attractions

Jessica Lowe Vokes rejects the notion that there is nothing to do in Iowa or that the state is boring, and she has embarked on an adventure to prove it.

The journey is unique in that it forgoes any long voyages at sea or scaling high mountain tops. Instead, Lowe Vokes, of Newton, is keeping her feet firmly planted in the landlocked and relatively flat Hawkeye State, and finding ways to spotlight the cultural icons and attractions that make Iowa fun and interesting.

To showcase the state’s more positive qualities, Lowe Vokes has created a water bottle — an Adventure Bottle — decorated from top to bottom with small circles. The users fill those circles with a series of stickers featuring attractions from all over the state, signifying their visit. Lowe Vokes has designed it all herself.

The Adventure Bottles were inspired by the water bottles used by travelers who frequent national parks. The bottles feature stickers or stamps to mark when a person has visited the park. Lowe Vokes noticed her cousin using a similar bottle and immediately thought of her home state and its many landmarks.

Lowe Vokes is never one to turn down an interesting project, so she dove in head first and started looking up interesting places in Iowa and designing the stickers that pay homage to those areas. As someone who also likes to travel, Lowe Vokes also thought to include some of the more quirky places she visited in Iowa.

“Some of them range from just roadside attractions where you go and maybe take a picture, to full-fledged museums or experiences,” Lowe Vokes said.

So while everyone else was doom scrolling through their phones or playing their mobile games, Lowe Vokes was busy creating stickers on Canva. So far she has developed several series of stickers to go along with the Adventure Bottles, encouraging people to travel to these areas and see the attractions themselves.

The Harlan-Lincoln House in Mount Pleasant. The Little Mermaid Statue Garden in Kimballton. The Putnam Egyptian Exhibit in Davenport. Grant Wood’s studio in Cedar Rapids. The world’s crookedest street in Burlington. The largest wooden nickel in Iowa City. The Downtown Farmers Market in Des Moines.

“The hardest part is getting to a stopping point,” Lowe Vokes said with a laugh. “I have over 100 stickers now that I’ve designed, because it kind of just snowballed. Once you find one thing, you find another. And now people are telling me, ‘Oh! Did you see this thing?’”

Which, of course, she has to create another sticker for.

Lowe Vokes even created a Major League Baseball-inspired sticker series, allowing sports fans to mark the stadiums they have traveled to. She also launched Adventure Stickers for the Iowa State Fair this year. Proceeds from the stickers went toward the Iowa State Fair Blue Ribbon Foundation.

To accompany the Adventure Bottles, Lowe Vokes recently announced that she had created the Iowa Passport Travel Journal Coloring & Activity Book. Like the bottles, the book invites families to travel to Iowa communities. Each page has a coloring portion, an activity and some history about the destinations.

Users are encouraged to write down the date they visited each respective town and who they visited it with. The coloring and activity book features 26 Iowa locations and 26 site stickers. The project certainly keeps Lowe Vokes busy and allows her to celebrate Iowa’s positive contributions.

“I think so often Iowa gets overlooked or that all we do is grow corn,” Lowe Vokes said. “…I love history, I love learning about different things, I love showcasing positive things here. I love the quirky and unusual. So it kind of hit all those buttons. I just think it’s neat to be able to share those.”

Both the Adventure Bottles and the Iowa Passport Travel Journal Coloring & Activity Book are for sale. Lowe Vokes said she is working on creating an online shop but for now the best way to order a bottle or book is to message the Adventure Bottles Facebook page directly.

“I’m very lucky to be able to do something creative and fun to me and then get to share it with others,” Lowe Vokes said. “I’m fortunate that my family and friends have been so supportive of the whole thing. It’s been an adventure in and of itself.”