Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail to Iowa (in a van named Scooby)

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Somewhere between her home state of New York and Iowa, Hillary Clinton – the most recognized politician to enter the 2016 U.S. presidential race – is in a van named Scooby heading for a key state that will shape her bid to become American's first woman president.

"Road trip! Loaded the van & set off for IA. Met a great family when we stopped this afternoon. Many more to come. –H," she tweeted on Sunday night, mentioning the Iowa state abbreviation and signing the tweet with her first name initial.

The tweet appeared six hours after a video announcing her campaign was released on YouTube.

Ms. Clinton's decision to drive, rather than fly, 16 hours to her first campaign appearance in Iowa set off a scramble by national media outlets to track her down.

CNN reported that she was spotted at a gas station in Pennsylvania on Sunday. On Monday, a local TV station in Toledo, Ohio, reported that she ordered the chicken bowl with guacamole at a nearby Chipotle restaurant.

Outside Chicago, media trucks staked out a quiet residential block in suburban Park Ridge with hopes that Ms. Clinton might stop by her childhood home.

Unlike her Republican rivals who staged big rallies to announce their campaign, Ms. Clinton chose to declare and disappear – part of a broader strategy to create smaller and down-to-earth encounters with everyday Americans, would-be voters and to, hopefully, exorcise the ghosts of 2008.

"The alternative would be to have an event in a stadium, so she could fill the stadium. Those events are presumably pretty valuable for campaigns because they produce a lot of good visuals showing enthusiasm for the candidate. But they also look a lot the same as celebrations of victory," said Paul Quirk, political science professor and Phil Lind Chair in U.S. Politics and Representation at the University of British Columbia.

For Ms. Clinton, that kind of perception – that she is channeling victory before any vote is held – could be crippling for her campaign.

"One of the criticisms of her in the 2008 campaign was that she was presuming the lead and was arrogant and just relying on being inevitable – that Clinton would have to be nominated," said Professor Quirk.

Professor Quirk adds that the criticism is bound to happen with any candidate perceived as having a big lead – and anything that candidate does will be interpreted as presuming victory.

Ms. Clinton was seen as the front-runner leading up to Democratic primaries in 2008. In 2015, she is the only Democratic candidate so far and widely seen as dominating her party's presidential race in the early stages regardless of who else steps in to the contest.

But with that same narrative in the wind almost eight years later, it could sway voters who are not that engaged with politics, added Professor Quirk.

The 2015 Clinton launch was low-key – leaving commentators and voters with only a video and Tweet to digest.

"What this strategy does is basically create a big symbolic gesture that they explain as indicating her humility and her intention to start the campaign from the ground up," said Professor Quirk.

The outline of the strategy is shared by former President Bill Clinton in an interview with Town & Country Magazine.

"I think it's important, and Hillary does too, that she go out there as if she's never run for anything before and establish her connection with the voters," he says.

The road-trip, as it turns out, was her idea.

"When Hillary first told us that she was ready to hit the road for Iowa, we literally looked at her and said, 'Seriously?' And she said, 'Seriously'," said Huma Abedin, long-time Clinton friend and aide from Ms. Clinton's State Department days. "This was her idea, and she's been really excited about it since she came up with it," added Ms. Abedine.

Nicknaming the van in honour of the seventies animated series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (in which the ghostbusting characters roamed America in a vehicle called The Mystery Machine) was also her idea. Behind the wheel, however, is a U.S. Secret Service agent, according to reports.

On Tuesday, Ms. Clinton puts her 'go small' strategy to work. She is expected to meet students and teachers at a community college in Monticello, Iowa, and then the following day at a business roundtable in Kirkwood.

The small meetings could help her connect with voters who may not remember her from her time as First Lady of the United States and the personal and political battles of the 1990s that some commentators have described as baggage.

"This is a chance for Hillary Clinton to genuinely recast herself – and I think there's actually some room to maneuver there. There's probably not a lot of room to maneuver but there's some for her to define who she's going to be in this election," said Peter Loewen, assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and director of the Centre for the Study of the United States.

Contrast the Clinton strategy with that of Republican presidential candidates and their campaign launches. Senator Ted Cruz spoke to a raucous crowd in a concert-like setting at one of the country's leading evangelical Christian universities. He walked the podium-less stage, speaking without the aid of notes.

In 2008, Ms. Clinton placed third in the Iowa caucuses behind John Edwards and Barack Obama – a result that hobbled her campaign in the early stages. Ms. Clinton was criticized for holding big events that made her inaccessible to ordinary Iowans.

The Iowa caucuses is the first hurdle – expected in January 2016 – of the Democratic primaries that will decide the party's presidential nominee for election day in November 2016. So far, she is the only Democratic party candidate.

Ms. Clinton will benefit from having the field to herself initially and reconnecting with voters, but she will need a strong Democratic party challenge, said Professor Loewen.

"I think she should hope for a good vigorous challenge. Barack Obama looked pretty good going into that [presidential] campaign after surviving those primaries. And frankly, I think Mitt Romney was a better candidate – I don't think he was ever a great candidate – but he was a better candidate after fending off all those challengers in 2012 than he has was at the start of that campaign and certainly [better] than he was in 2008," he added.

Among Republicans, the list of presidential candidates is growing.

Senator Marco Rubio is the third Republican candidate to step in to the presidential race and is expected to hold a large rally in Miami on Monday in front of thousands of supporters, followed by several sit-down interviews with TV and radio networks – a formula largely followed by his two other Republican rivals, Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.

Ms. Clinton's low-key approach was also evident in her campaign launch video. At just over two minutes long, it only features her face and voice at about the 90-second mark. Instead, a string of stories about ordinary voters – Latinos, blacks, LGBT, retirees and young voters – are featured prominently. There were no sit-down interviews, and no scheduled rallies so far.

With reports from AP and Reuters