1. Athens, Ohio
Athens is a dynamic desert spring in the western Allegheny foothills, known for its music scene, monstrous road celebrations, presumed hauntedness, and, obviously, the college the town rotates around: Ohio University.
Why it’s so cool
Marvelous society and twang music and Athens’ inclination for insane parties, including their epic Halloween bash that hosts countless guests.
2. Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is a delightful little city with its long, bending waterfront along the Tennessee River and soak encompassing ridgelines of the Cumberland Plateau. Likewise with different urban areas in the South, typical cost for basic items is super low contrasted with different districts of the nation (normal home cost under $150k and low property charges), and the neighborhood economy has flourished over the previous decade, with real organizations, for example, Volkswagen and Amazon building offices there.
Why it’s so cool
The Appalachian territory encompassing Chattanooga (and zones, for example, Walden’s Ridge and the Cumberland Plateau) is loaded with precipices, rivulets, waterfalls, and year-round access to a portion of the best climbing and whitewater paddling in the nation.
3. Silver City, New Mexico
Not at all like the numerous forgoten previous mining towns that pepper the American west, Silver City has adjusted in the post-mining time to end up a home for specialists, artists, journalists, and understudies at Western New Mexico University.
Why it’s so cool
Silver City is appropriate by the vacant, wonderful Gila Wilderness, and is additionally home to one of the best expressions scenes in the state – which implies executioner music festivals and displays everywhere.
4. Oneonta, New York
It’s home to Hartwick College and SUNY Oneonta, however Oneonta figures out how to have a character apart from being only a school town. The town puts a major accentuation on maintainability – both natural and monetary – and is in a totally excellent setting in the Catskill mountains.
Why it’s so cool
Astounding sustenance, a dynamic, economically minded people, a yearly hot air balloon celebration, and close-by access to a portion of the best ski mountains in the Catskills.
5. Mercer, Wisconsin
Mercer has had a few apogees starting in the 1920s when it was a shelter for Chicago mobsters like Frank Capone and John Dillinger. The 1950s brought a multiplication of mother and-pop resorts when the lakes were flooding with fish. From that point forward very little has changed. These days, rather than evading criminals, you’ll be threading old backwoods trails by walking or bicycle. Immortal with a downplayed cool variable, Mercer is sufficiently far ‘up north’ to escape whatever it is you’re hoping to make tracks in an opposite direction from. Odds are truly great whatever “it” is won’t tail you here.
Why it’s so cool
Mercer is the sort of place where an old-school live lure shop offers space, and proprietorship, with a bistro turning out natively constructed cakes, scones, and perfect coffees.
6. Port Angeles, Washington
Only a straightforward ship ride crosswise over Puget Sound from Seattle and you’re on the Olympic Peninsula and an entirely unexpected world. Port Angeles is one of those spots where the scene is in your face and the conventional strategies for getting new nourishment on your table (mussel gathering, salmon angling) are fit as a fiddle.
Why it’s so cool
Pound for pound, Port Angeles has the most differing wild access of any town in the US and is one of the main spots where you could without much of a stretch surf and snowboard (and perhaps even kayak) around the same time. Other than surf and oar spots in the quick region – Elwha River mouth, campground, and hot springs(!) – it’s lone a short drive to La Push, home of the Quileute Nation and the endless Wilderness Coast trail.
7. Asbury Park, New Jersey
This residential area of 16,000 on the Jersey Shore is conceivably one of the best towns for music in America. Don’t bother that it sits on the Atlantic Coast and is brimming with shoddy bars and delectable nourishment: this is the home of Springsteen, and when a star that huge gets his begin in your town, artists will run to your close, incredible scenes for a considerable length of time after he takes off.
Why it’s so cool
AP’s amazing music is the best music in the state, it has a shoreline and promenade, it has inexpensive brew and scrumptious food, and it’s super gay benevolent. Gracious, furthermore: Bruce Springsteen.
8. Berea, Kentucky
Try not to blink and miss this eccentric Appalachian town that has developed past the aesthetic sciences school on which it was established, and is currently known for its carefully assembled and-artworks scene. There are more than 40 craft shops and boutiques, including quilt-creators to glassblowers to chocolatiers. Yearning artisans can agree to any number of day-to-week-long workshops in a variety of artworks, including furniture making at the eminent Kelly Mehler School of Woodworking.
Why it’s so cool
Dig into the absolute entirety of customary American handcrafts.
9. Cedar Falls, Iowa
Despite the fact that more than 33% of its populace is made of understudies from the University of Northern Iowa, with its legacy downtown and its amplified system of trails, Cedar Falls is a great deal more than a school town.
Why it’s so cool
Cedar Falls has an extraordinary bar scene to think back on your great ol’ school days, a broad system of trails, thus numerous diletantish boutiques that you’d think they are out of fashion.
10. Fennville, Michigan
Fennville has the majority of the laid-back vibe of its waterfront neighbor, Saugatuck, without the swarms of ‘I’m wealthier and artsier than you’ sightseers from Chicago that surge the range in summer. It has immense extends of sandy Lake Michigan shorelines, vineyards, extraordinary Mexican nourishment, and specialists who think substantially more about craftsmanship than the workmanship scene.
Why it’s so cool
It’s a warm and inviting group loaded with traveling workers (subsequently the valid outside sustenance accessible), craftsmen, and families who need to attempt their hand at living all the more essentially.