Aledo is a friendly, walkable Mercer County seat with a compact historic downtown, local restaurants, parks and frequent community events — a quiet, safe base with small‑town charm that’s surprisingly comfortable for multi‑week stays and easy to make home-away-from-home.
If you crave bigger-city options on days off, the Quad Cities (Davenport–Moline–Bettendorf) are only about 30–35 miles away for an airport, theaters, festivals and a broader dining scene, and Galesburg (roughly 40 miles) adds college-town museums, music and shopping to explore.