Rural Road Trip Shoppers Shop Throughout Southeast Iowa

SOUTHEAST IOWA – Rural Road Trip, a “shop hop” through rural communities organized by Feathered Farmhouse owner Mallory Snakenberg, drew in big crowds last weekend, despite the severe weather. Snakenberg began Rural Roadtrip in 2019, as a way for small businesses with occasional hours to band together and draw in customers. Three times a year, during the spring, fall and holiday season, shoppers are encouraged to do a loop through Iowa City, Kalona, Wellman, Keota, Harper, Ollie, Sigourney, North English, Williamsburg and Oxford, visiting small businesses throughout Southeast Iowa. Rural Roadtrip regularly draws in hundreds of shoppers from across the Midwest.

“I started my business back in 2016, and I had worked for the city clerk’s office in Sigourney for years, and I planned the Fourth of July events in town. I also worked for the police department for several years and planned National Night Out,” said Snakenberg. “So, a few years into my own business journey, I kind of missed that event planning aspect of things. Also, I had always had a passion for our town, working and living here and being a part of the city and things like that, you see the importance of local option sales tax dollars. I kind of, through working with the city, got to put together kind of a portfolio, what those funds have done for our community, and it kind of stirred up in me, how can we elevate on that? How can we bring dollars into our community?..At the time, I was an occasional shop. We operated out of our home, and so there wasn’t really a good way to kind of connect all these other little occasional shops I call garage shops, all at once. So this was giving people an opportunity where, I might be open this weekend, so and so’s open that week, it’s one weekend every season where everybody was open the exact same hours. And so it really drew people in, to be able to go do that route that weekend.”

“A lot of people still tried to make it out,” said Snakenberg about the weather. “We still had a lot of out-of-state people that came through that said they wouldn’t miss it for anything. We were really happy to see that. The severe weather really kind of starts to put a damper on a little bit of things. You know, having tornado warnings and stuff is a little bit different than your normal rain or wind. But we were really happy to see the crowds, at least at our store, come through still despite the weather.”

The next Rural Roadtip is planned for Sept. 27 and 28.