I’m going to be going to Iowa

No.

" I am going to eat. " is just a form of future tense. It is equivalent to saying "I will eat". There is a slight difference in tone, the first sounds a bit more intentional. But they are both statements of things that will happen in the future.

"I am going to be going...." is the same idea. The only confusion is that the first "going" is the idiomatic future tense (same as above). The second is the verb "to go".

Thanks. So many things I understand but can't really explain.

If so,why not simply "I’m going to Iowa"? Does repeating "going" serve as an emphasis?

But the speaker is not going to Iowa now. He will be going in the future.

He could simply say "I will be going to Iowa." Or (even more simply) "I will go to Iowa".

Saying "I am going to Iowa" is informal (it can either be future or something you are doing right now". It isn't wrong and I would interpret it based on the context. If you are sitting at a desk and say "I am going to Disney World"... I will assume you mean the future. It isn't wrong.

It sounds like a humourous use of unnecessary words. "I'm going to Iowa" can mean you're going immediately, or that you have plans to go—so "going to be" isn't necessary. It's a play on different conjugations of the same verb:

"going to be" (future tense)

"going to" (present tense, when it eventually happens)