 
Aiken, South Carolina Before you visit Aiken, know this: Horses have the right-of-way. In fact, Aiken is possibly the only town in the South where residents are opposed to the paving of roads, reserving them instead for horses and carriages. Even paved thoroughfares such as Whiskey Road have cross buttons at rider level to signal automobile traffic to stop, allowing horses to cross over into Hitchcock Woods, one of the largest forests in the nation. Road signs are stamped with horse profiles, and just about every house has an adjoining stable, or at least a horse trailer in its driveway. It’s no wonder, then, that Aiken is attracting equestrian enthusiasts from around the world. “We have field hunters, show hunters, jumpers, dressage, polo, flat racing, steeplechase, reining, Western pleasure, driving. If you can name a discipline, I can name a top trainer who calls Aiken home,” says Valerie Swygert, dressage instructor and owner of Jasmine Farm. “But best of all, I can run into town in my tight riding breeches and leather boots and nobody looks at me oddly.” With mild winters, early springs, no sand flies, and sandy soil perfect for conditioning horses, this is truly an equestrian paradise. And with its shaded streets, double avenues, historic mansions, and a thriving arts community, it isn’t a bad place for humans either. A Typical Day: For breakfast, locals swear by the Track Kitchen across from Whitney Polo Field, a ramshackle, noisy, down-at-the-heels, bacon-’n’-grits place run by James “Pockets” Carter and his wife. Step outside to watch the Thoroughbreds training in the morning light. Stroll through beautiful Hopelands Gardens with fourteen acres of camellias, dogwoods, and scenic ponds, and end up at the Aiken Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame for a glimpse of the local racing industry from 1900 to the present. For lunch, try the peekytoe crab at Davor’s Café, tucked away in an alley downtown. Spend the afternoon walking or riding through Hitchcock Woods, or catch a Sunday polo match. For dinner, cuiZine is a sleek, cosmopolitan French-Asian spot downtown with sidewalk dining. Evening summer concerts are held at Hopelands Gardens each Monday through August. End your evening with a single-malt Scotch at Hotel Aiken’s Polo Tavern, a favorite haunt of the Argentine polo players. Plant Your Roots: Aiken was known as the Winter Colony a century ago, when the Vanderbilts, Whitneys, and Astors built their sprawling sixty-nine-room “cottages” here. Stately, historic homes are occasionally for sale for upwards of $4 million, but smaller cottages start at $250,000. As for newer equestrian developments, Realtor Mike Hosang commends Brigadoon for its “green” approach, with 500 acres set aside for green space and riding trails, and a 40-acre grassy area for dressage, show jumping, training, and polo practice (brigadoonsc.com, carolinahorseproperties.com). And if you want to invest in more than just property, look to Dogwood Stable, headed by W. Cothran “Cot” Campbell, an entrepreneur who pioneered the idea of selling limited partnerships in racehorses, some of whom make it to the Derby (dogwoodstable.com). RUNNER-UP Georgetown, KY With all due respect to Middleburg, Virginia, and Wellington, Florida, horse lovers should keep their eye on historic Georgetown, Kentucky, where the 1,224-acre Kentucky Horse Park will host the FEI World Equestrian Games in 2010 (the first time the “Olympics for Horses” will be held outside Europe). BEST SPORTING TOWN Apalachicola, Florida Locals call it simply “Apalach.” On a hot summer day, who wants to wrap their jaw around all those extra syllables anyway? Better to lock jaw around a glistening, briny Apalachicola oyster. Natives have lived off of nature’s bounty here for thousands of years. And sport fishing is now a top draw. No one knows the local waters better than the Robinson brothers, Tommy and Chris. The duo offers year-round guide services (floridaredfish.com) for an all-star lineup of game fish including tarpon, king mackerel, redfish, cobia, and trout. When you need a break from the water, head to the 12,358-acre St. Vincent Island’s National Wildlife Refuge. In its former life as a private hunting preserve, the island was stocked with exotics such as zebra, black buck, eland, and sambar deer (a 500-pound elk-like animal from Southeast Asia). A herd of sambar deer remains, and the refuge sponsors annual hunts with primitive weapons to keep the population in check (call 850-653-8808). The nearby 564,000-acre Apalachicola National Forest is a favorite destination for all manner of outdoor pursuits. The motto at Boss Oyster, a popular riverside oyster shack, is “Oysters All Ways, Oysters Always!” They serve them twenty-nine ways and counting (inviting new recipe ideas from customers), including the Gooda Gooda, flame-broiled with spicy Creole soy sauce and smoked Gouda. But purists slurp them down raw. A Typical Day: For breakfast, try the oyster cakes at Caroline’s River Dining. Ask the bartender to mix up a mean pitcher of oyster mimosas; then watch the shrimp boats gliding upriver. Go sailing, kayaking, fishing, crabbing, or clamming. Head out by boat or car to the uncrowded, pristine beaches of nearby St. George Island for lunch at Eddy Teach’s Raw Bar, where the oysters, burgers, and cold beers are plentiful and cheap. Hike the trails of the island’s state park, and take a dip in the clear Gulf waters. In the afternoon, explore the unique shops in the historic downtown, where you’ll find everything from nautical antiques to local sponges (the town was founded by sponge divers). A five-course dinner at Avenue Sea, in the Gibson Inn, is a must (chef David Carrier and his wife, Ryanne, specialize in fresh, local, seasonal garden-to-table magic). Plant Your Roots: This tiny historic fishing town on Florida’s Forgotten Coast is one of the few hamlets that can live up to the moniker. Residents have done a terrific job of restoring historic cotton warehouses as well as sprawling Georgian, Victorian, and Gothic Revival mansions. You can find late nineteenth-century historic homes for sale ranging from $765,000 to $1,600,000, and more recent homes and waterfront cottages. The average home price is $300,000 (forgottencoastlife.com). RUNNER-UP McClellanville, SC Surrounded by 350,000 acres of nature preserves (the Francis Marion National Forest, the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, and the Santee Coastal Reserve), and fully recovered from Hurricane Hugo’s 1989 assault, this tiny waterfront town is a hunting and fishing paradise. BEST MUSIC TOWN Brevard, North Carolina That magnificent sound you hear in brevard? It’s the music. Chances are it’s coming from the Brevard Music Center, where faculty and students make a habit of kicking open a window while practicing, or setting up under a tree for an impromptu concert. The highly esteemed center opened its doors seventy-two years ago. Each summer now, more than four hundred students join professional musicians and internationally acclaimed guest artists for a seven-week jam on the 140-acre wooded campus. There are on average about eighty public performances per summer ranging from classical jazz to brass bands, Latino, opera, and musical theater. Local bluegrass pickers converge at the annual Mountain Song Festival each September (mountainsongfestival.com), featuring the best of bluegrass, old-time, folk, and traditional mountain music, performed in an open-air auditorium with the Pisgah National Forest as its backdrop. Year-round, Celestial Mountain Music, owned by local Mary Gordon, is a gathering spot and the sponsor of Tuesday night jam sessions (celestialmtnmusic.com). For a little of Ma Nature’s music, strike out in any direction from town. Perched at 2,200 feet, Brevard is ringed by the rugged 6,000-foot mountains of Pisgah National Forest, the DuPont State Forest, Three Gorges State Park, and the Bracken Mountain Nature Reserve. You’ll find opportunities for hiking, camping, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, tubing, white-water rafting, horseback riding, rock climbing, and swimming. A Typical Day: Grab a freshly baked pastry from the Bracken Mountain Bakery, and while you’re there, purchase its signature flatbreads for the road (smeared with blue cheese and walnuts). Head to the Pisgah National Forest for a morning hike. The “Land of the Waterfalls” offers more than 260 plunging waterfalls, the most spectacular being Looking Glass Falls. Cool off at any number of swimming holes. The “Skinny Dip” is a favorite (don’t take the name literally). Even on the hottest day, the water is bracing. Fuel up at Hawg Wild Bar-B-Que, then try your fly rod on the Davidson River, wading for trophy mountain trout (davidsonflyfishing.com). Head back to town for an afternoon stroll through Brevard’s eclectic galleries and antique shops (musicians will find handcrafted banjos, fiddles, and dulcimers at Celestial Mountain Music). In the early evening, enjoy the breezes on the deck at Hobnob Restaurant, which offers a special menu for concert-goers in a hurry. Try the dill-crusted mountain trout with roasted red potatoes, asparagus, and lemon caper sauce, and be sure to stick around for Sunday night jazz jams through July. Plant Your Roots: Whether you’re looking for a nineteenth-century farmhouse, a rustic cedar cabin, an elegant cottage, or a Victorian inn, you can find it in the nearby hills. According to Jeremy Owen, a local Realtor, the average house sale in 2007 was $340,000 for a 2,500-square-foot home. Properties with mountain views, private trout streams, and lake views can run more. Recently, a forty-acre farm fronting the French Broad River was listed at $1.1 million. RUNNER-UP Lexington, VA Any thriving college town can boast its share of live music, but Lexington has a unique venue at the Lime Kiln (theateratlimekiln.com), a nineteenth-century lime kiln and quarry that create a multi-level stage under the stars. Outdoor programming thrives from May through October. BEST BIRDING TOWN Fairhope, Alabama Perched high on the bluffs of Alabama’s Eastern Shore, the town of Fairhope sits squarely on the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail. Each spring and fall, the 240-mile-long birding extravaganza surrounding Mobile Bay attracts upwards of one million visitors of the wingless variety, hoping to get a glimpse at the hoards of migratory birds that use the bay as a rest stop on their routes to and from Mexico and beyond. When the flocks have passed, however, Fairhope does not fold up its wings. The town is known for its sweeping panoramic views of Mobile Bay, its old bluff cottages, its tree-lined avenues, and its explosion of flowers lining planters and windows of downtown shops. The town owns and operates eight greenhouses. Even the trash receptacles double as planters. The area has long been a haven for artists and writers, and maintains a progressive, culturally vibrant climate year-round. The annual Arts & Crafts Festival in March is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the South. Each April, the Fairhope Yacht Club hosts the Dauphin Island Regatta, the largest one-day sailing regatta in the nation, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2008. A Typical Day: Start your day at Julwin’s Restaurant with a stick-to-your-ribs country breakfast. Then head to the Weeks Bay Nature Reserve and stroll on walkways through the marshlands, or try your hand casting for redfish and speckled trout. In late morning check out Page & Palette bookstore in the beautiful French Quarter, where you can eavesdrop on the ritualistic gathering of Fairhope’s intellectual and creative fringe. Panini Pete’s, just behind the bookstore, offers crepes, seared tuna salad, and European sandwiches, with a courtyard for a patio lunch. Spend your afternoon exploring more than two hundred boutiques, galleries, antiques stores, and eclectic shops in the tree-lined downtown. Stroll through the award-winning rose garden in the park along the waterfront. For dinner, try the Colony Grill’s salmon filet glazed with rum and maple syrup, with “angry” hot pepper flakes. Plant Your Roots: Fairhope was once called the best-kept secret on the Gulf Coast, but its secret is out, so home prices are up, though still lower than in many coastal towns. The flip side to higher home prices is low property taxes and no sales tax. Fairhope was founded on utopian principles as a single-tax colony, where resources are pooled for the benefit of the town (the latest fruits of this program are an Olympic-size swimming pool and a planned 43,000-square-foot library). You can buy historic waterfront homes for around $2 million or cottages for $500,000 (cortrightrealestate.com; dauphinrealty.com). RUNNER-UP Nacogdoches, TX Dubbed the Piney Woods Capital of Texas, Nacogdoches is not only the oldest town in Texas, but it’s also home to forests, lakes, pastures, parks, gardens, and arboretums that attract oodles of birds. BEST WINE TOWN Keswick, Virginia Thankfully for Keswick, Thomas Jefferson enjoyed his vino. Not only did he recognize the inherent beauty of the Piedmont, he envisioned the rolling hills of Virginia as a premier winemaking region. While Jefferson’s viticulture efforts failed (at one low point, he wrote to a friend that vines are “the parent of misery”), two hundred years later his vision put Keswick on the international wine map. Today, the Commonwealth boasts more than 120 wineries producing top-notch varietals such as Petit Verdots and Viogniers. Keswick sits in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mere seven miles east of Charlottesville. With an old post office as a focal point, the area is a model of conservation, speckled with large farms, old estates, gently rolling hills, vineyards, and open meadows. Vast tracts of land make it perfect for foxhunting, beagling, bird shooting, and hiking. Fall and spring bring steeplechases, along with the requisite pre-race parties. You also won’t want to miss the annual Blessing of the Hounds at Thanksgiving at centuries-old Grace Episcopal Church. Scarlet-coated foxhunters from the esteemed Keswick Hunt Club pass around their velvet hunt caps for donations to benefit local charities. A Typical Day: Mornings are a perfect time to visit any of the three historic homes in the area built by our nation’s early presidents: Monticello (Thomas Jefferson), Montpelier (James Madison), or Ash Lawn-Highland (James Monroe). Residents like to pick up gourmet sandwiches at Brix Marketplace, then picnic nearby on the grounds of Ash Lawn-Highland. In the afternoon, do some vineyard hopping (monticellowinetrail.org). Tastings are typically $4, with fresh-baked breads and artisanal cheeses to cleanse your palate. End your afternoon at Barboursville Vineyards, just north of Keswick. For dinner, it’s a toss-up between Barboursville’s Palladio Restaurant (pan-roasted guinea hen with buckwheat polenta and liver-brandy sauce), Keswick Hall’s Fossett’s (lamb sweetbreads with saffron fennel jam), and Clifton (buffalo carpaccio with aged Gruyère and quail egg Caesar dressing). You can’t go wrong. Plant Your Roots: According to local resident, foxhunter, and Realtor Justin H. Wiley (farmandestate.net), there are quite a few properties available in Keswick right now, which is not at all the norm. Typically these large tracts stay within families for generations. Among recent listings is a sixty-four-acre parcel in the heart of Keswick, close to historic Grace Church, for $1,750,000. If you’ve always dreamed of owning your own vineyard but don’t know a grape from a raisin, Kluge Vineyard Estates, near Monticello, is offering land plots starting at $1.9 million. Kluge will tend your vines, but the label is yours. RUNNER-UP Dahlonega, GA People flocked to this north Georgia town for gold in 1828, decades before the California gold rush. Now they come for wine. Dahlonega sits between four vineyards in the heart of Georgia’s burgeoning wine country. BEST ART TOWN Marfa, Texas When Hollywood is looking for middle-of-nowhere, it heads for Marfa, Texas. There in the highland plains of the Chihuahuan Desert, the largest desert in North America, you can turn 360 degrees without seeing a Burger King or a freeway. In 1955, Marfa hit the map when James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor stayed at the historic Paisano Hotel during the filming of the oil epic Giant. The Coen brothers arrived more recently to work on their Oscar-winning film No Country for Old Men. As did the makers of fellow Oscar contender There Will Be Blood. Locals were cast in minor, often ill-fated, roles and played their parts seamlessly, indifferent to concepts of fame or pretense. Not everyone shared the opinion of the drifter who greeted the Coen brothers with the handmade sign that read “Repent, Hollywood Scum.” With wide open skies, starkly beautiful terrain, and pastel light dancing off the distant mountain ranges, Marfa is a blank slate for the creative mind. And so it was for artist Donald Judd, who bought property there in the 1970s for his minimalist sculpture installations, eventually transforming Marfa into one of the hippest art communities in the country. Now ranchers sit elbow-to-elbow with yoga buffs at the local diner, reading Livestock Weekly and the New York Times. A Typical Day: Fill up on pancakes at the Brown Recluse, then head over to the Chinati Foundation, a contemporary art museum on 340 acres of a former military base (chinati.org) where you can view permanent sculpture installations and meet artists-in-residence. Grab a freshly made Marfalafel from the Food Shark mobile café. Take an afternoon scenic drive through the Davis Mountains, or go rafting in the biosphere preserve of nearby Big Bend National Park, or opt for a glider ride and soar high above the plateau on Marfa’s legendary currents (flygliders.com). Try the pistachio-encrusted steak with jalapeño cream gravy at Jett’s Grill (named after Dean’s character in Giant) in the beautifully restored Spanish Colonial Paisano Hotel. Then park yourself on the edge of the desert looking east toward the Chinati Mountains to view the mysterious Marfa Lights—ghostly flashes of unknown origin on the horizon, attributed to everything from Indian spirits and swamp gas to witches, UFOs, and luminescent jackrabbits. Invent your own theory. Plant Your Roots: Art may be the strongest draw for creative types, but for many city dwellers Marfa’s appeal is land. County records show sixty-four acres for each cow. The well-heeled are flying in from Houston, Dallas, and New York to buy up raw land on which to build sleek modern homes with views of the azure skies. Some create vineyards just outside of town, or choose to renovate vacant downtown buildings and adobe structures. Prices are climbing due to the recent Oscar buzz, but keep in mind that the cost of living in Marfa is 31.87 percent lower than the national average. One-hundred-year-old cottages in town average $300,000, or you can splurge on a new adobe compound equipped with its own wine cellar for $595,000 (marfarealestate.com). RUNNER-UP Easton, MD Artists and art lovers converge in this scenic water town every November for the Waterfowl Festival. Roughly twenty thousand people head to Easton’s historic downtown district to view and purchase some of the best wildlife art in the world (waterfowlfestival.org). BEST GARDEN TOWN Natchez, Mississippi It happens every year: A couple of Huck Finn wannabes wash up on the shores of Natchez after taking a beating on the Mississippi River and sharing sandbars with bugs and gators. No surprise, they think they’ve landed in heaven. For the same feelings of rapture but with less hassle, try arriving in a car. At forty miles from the nearest freeway, and one hundred miles from the nearest airport, Natchez is off the beaten path. But in the antebellum South, when cotton was king and the port was bustling, Natchez boasted more millionaires per capita than any city in America. Then came the Civil War, an economy in ruins, the deadly boll weevil crop destruction of 1908, and the Great Depression. Natchez sat in a time warp, an antebellum museum of a town. In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, two garden clubs decided to open to the public the town’s stately antebellum homes and gardens. The tours were a hit and continue to draw thousands every year. Visitors can ogle original Italian marble, French china hand-painted by John James Audubon, and silver retrieved from Civil War hiding places in the garden. This fall, Mary Louise Shields, age 101, will take her usual place on the front porch of her 1855 home to welcome visitors and share family stories (natchezpilgrimage.com). The majority of Natchez sits on 200-foot cliffs high above the river and boasts more antebellum structures than anywhere in the nation. Its streets are lined with Natchez crape myrtles, its gardens bursting with roses, sweet olive, and heirloom camellias. But even the most prim and proper socialite can indulge a whim, saunter down the steep grade to the river landing below, climb up on a bar stool with the riffraff at the Under-the-Hill Saloon, order a shot of whiskey, and toast Mark Twain. A Typical Day: Fuel up on beignets and specialty coffees at the Marketplace Café, then take a leisurely drive (or bike ride) along the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile ancient route connecting Natchez to Nashville, now operated as a national park. Return to town for an old-fashioned lunch at the Carriage House at Stanton Hall, famous for its fried chicken, flaky catfish, tomato aspic, silver-dollar-size biscuits, and above all, its mint juleps. Spend the afternoon touring local plantations and their extensive gardens. Go antiquing, then stroll along the bluff overlooking the Louisiana lowcountry across the river. The Castle at Dunleith Plantation, a restored 1790s carriage house, offers an elegant meal with an award-winning wine list; try the “Castle-let” with shrimp, scallops, and lump crabmeat tossed with artichoke hearts and a vodka cream sauce. Then head to the crowded Biscuits & Blues for an evening of Mississippi blues music. Plant Your Roots: You get a lot of bang for your buck in Natchez compared with many other Southern towns. Of the more than five hundred structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places, you can typically find two or three historic plantation homes for sale at any given time, listed at around $1.5 million, with sweeping lawns and centuries-old live oaks (sothebysrealty.com). Historic townhouses and period commercial buildings are also being rescued and transformed into antique shops or reproduction furniture stores downtown. RUNNER-UP Madison, GA An hour east of Atlanta sits the antebellum town of Madison, home to beautiful homes and exquisite gardens, old and new. Famed local gardener Jane Symmes hybridized a Southern favorite, the ‘Madison confederate jasmine.’ BEST CHOW TOWN Natchitoches, Louisiana In 1980, the state of Louisiana challenged the residents of the town of Natchitoches (pronounced NACK-uh-tish) to wean themselves off their fabled meat pies and try the Pritikin Diet, a low-fat, high-fiber fad. Why? Because the town’s rate of heart disease was well above the national average. Most residents were appalled by the challenge, and even the governor announced that he would rather die ten years younger than eat Pritikin’s cardboard. The experiment fizzled out, and locals are quick to point out that the good doctor is dead—and they are not. Meat pies have been a staple here since the late 1700s, sold by street vendors yelling “Hotta meat pies!” In the 1960s, Natchitoches native James Lasyone (that’s LAH-see-YON) supplemented his butcher business by selling some meat pies of his own. He experimented for more than a year to perfect his recipe: a secret blend of beef, pork, onions, green peppers, garlic, and spicy seasonings wrapped in a half-circle pastry crust, then deep-fried to a golden crisp. His investment paid off. Lasyone’s Meat Pie Kitchen and Restaurant is now a meaty empire, still family-run, cranking out four hundred to one thousand meat pies per day, all by hand. Each September, thousands descend on this river town for the annual Meat Pie Festival, a weekend of face stuffing, parades, entertainment, Cajun-Creole vendors and cook-offs, and even a Meat Pie Tri (a triathlon for those hoping to burn off some of those calories). Many jump up on stage for the perversely heroic World Meat Pie Eating Contest. Apart from meat pies, Natchitoches offers Louisiana Cajun-Creole fare to no end. Just look at the names of its restaurants: the Crawfish Hole, Ducournau, Merci Beaucoup. You’ll have your choice of crabmeat Lafitte, crawfish remoulade, grillades, grasshopper pie, Southern ambrosia, jambalaya, blooming onions, alligator pie, and maque choux. A Typical Day: Yes, you can eat meat pie for breakfast and lunch at Lasyone’s if you’re so inclined. The breakfast menu pairs meat pies with fried eggs and butter grits, and the lunch menu pairs the almighty pastry with Cajun dirty rice and veggies. To counteract these culinary heart-stoppers, Natchitoches is brimming with outdoor activities. Since the town is situated on the Cane River, locals can fish out their back doors, or head to the nearby Kisatchie National Forest to picnic, hike, fish, or ride horses. A leisurely drive down the Cane River Trail will take you past cotton fields and antebellum plantations open for viewing: Cherokee, Melrose, Oakland, and Magnolia. Nearby Sibley Lake has thirty-eight miles of shoreline. The local university supports an acclaimed symphony, ballet, and dinner theater. And best of all, Natchitoches has festivals year-round, culminating in the month-long December Festival of Lights, with weekly fireworks, and—surprise—meat pies. Plant Your Roots: Natchitoches is the oldest European settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory, two years older than New Orleans, and the town has done an exemplary job of restoring centuries-old buildings downtown. Some of the historic wrought-iron-laced buildings have been converted into modern condos with balconies. You’ll find Queen Anne and Victorian architecture as well as colonial-style homes (many converted into B&Bs), Creole-style cottages, and townhouses. Raw land on the Cane River runs roughly $45,000 per acre, and riverfront homes average $500,000 (caneheritagerealty.com; collinsandstamey.com). Best of all, Natchitoches’s low tax burden places it among the country’s top tax havens for retirees. RUNNER-UP Beaufort, SC Surrounded by islands steeped in Gullah traditions, Beaufort is a small coastal town with great seafood restaurants along its river. Its staple is the Beaufort stew, a spicy seafood boil (also called the Lowcountry boil or Frogmore stew). BEST HISTORIC TOWN St. Augustine, Florida During Revolutionary times, the British sent opposition leaders in the colonies to prison in St. Augustine. The prisoners were ordered to remain within the walled city, their escape blocked by water on three sides and alligator-infested swamps to the north. As any righteous Southerners-cum-prisoners would, they soon took to a life of smoking and carousing to pass the time. And rumor has it they threw the best parties in town. That was more than two hundred years ago, and St. Augustine was hardly young. America’s oldest city was founded in 1565 by conquistadors. Walking through its plazas and narrow cobblestoned streets is like walking through four centuries of history. Today, the town is a huge draw for history buffs and preservationists. St. Augustine is an exotic water town with a Mediterranean feel, great beaches, and international cuisine (French bistros, Spanish bakeries, English tearooms). It is culturally vibrant, with free summer concerts every Thursday night in the plaza, and monthly art walks in which galleries fling open their doors and offer wine, hors-d’oeuvres, and live music. Tucked between the bay and the Intracoastal Waterway, it offers year-round fishing, a sailing academy, scuba diving, boating, and parasailing 1,400 feet up above the water, looking down on America’s finest historical showcase. A Typical Day: Start your day with an espresso and a freshly baked cinnamon roll with generously hand-poured icing at the Bunnery Bakery & Café on historic St. George Street. Walk your sugar-high over to St. Augustine’s famous fort, the Castillo de San Marcos (1695). From the parapet, admire the coquina (“little shells”) walls, which have withstood three hundred years of bombardment by everything man and nature have thrown at them. Check out Henry Flagler’s lavish contributions to local architecture in the 1880s, dripping with fine marble, gold leaf, and Tiffany stained glass (especially the Casa Monica Hotel, Flagler College, and the Presbyterian church). For lunch, pay homage to the town founders by consuming empanadas at the Spanish Bakery. Then head over to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, founded in 1893. Among its rookery and extensive grounds, you’ll find all twenty-three species of living crocodilians, including rare white alligators. Dinner is a toss-up between A1A Ale Works, on the bay, with its fresh-brewed lagers and world cuisine, and Salt Water Cowboy’s, on the inner waterway, with its gator tails and frog legs. Or for finer dining, try the Champagne-broiled escargot at Raintree. Plant Your Roots: Water lovers rejoice: The area is an interlaced network of ocean, bays, estuaries, rivers, marsh, and lakes. Small two-bedroom cottages average $300,000, and prime oceanfront homes start at $1,000,000 (staugustinebeachproperties.com). RUNNER-UP Lewisburg, WV civil war buffs and historians should head to this gem of a town nestled between rich bluegrass farms. Its 236-acre historic district is packed with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings. BEST COLLEGE TOWN Sewanee, Tennessee It’s unclear who rules the roost in Sewanee: the dogs, the students, or the deer. Local pooches are welcome just about everywhere, attending outdoor classes, guarding their masters’ bicycles, begging for ice cream cones outside the dining hall, even slipping into church services (until politely escorted outside by the ushers). And white-tailed deer are seen grazing in the morning mist in the center of town. Not what you might expect in a place with a distinguished 150-year-old university whose honor students wear black robes to class. But that’s the beauty of it: this blend of higher learning in a laid-back, natural setting. Sewanee is a small college town perched two thousand feet above sea level on the Cumberland Plateau, in southeastern Tennessee. The town revolves around its university, the University of the South, which owns more than ten thousand acres of surrounding wilderness known affectionately as the Domain. There are no Wal-Marts, no chain stores, and just one traffic light, which is often ignored. If you’re yearning to write the great American novel, or simply read one, you’ll be surrounded by some of the finest writers in the country, past and present. Among the many writers who have been lured to live and work in Sewanee are Walker Percy, Allen Tate, and James Agee. But if you get a serious case of writer’s block, there’s plenty to do. The plateau is a natural playground of lakes, rivers, cliffs, caves, waterfalls, campsites, and trails. As you leave the University Gates, be sure to summon your guardian “Sewanee Angel” by touching your finger to the roof of your car (a Sewanee tradition). A Typical Day: Start your morning with gourmet coffee and homemade pastries at the Blue Chair Bakery. Set out on foot through Shakerag Hollow or to Bridal Veil Falls, or stroll through the woodland paths of Abbo’s Alley. Grab a light lunch at Stirling’s Coffee House and picnic by Lake Cheston. Visit nearby Fall Creek Falls State Park, a 20,000-acre preserve, and swim in the lagoon of its 256-foot waterfall, the highest in the eastern United States. For dinner, try the roast pork stuffed with pesto, goat cheese, and chutney at Pearl’s Café. Wind down with a Sweetwater beer on the porch of Shenanigans, watching lightning bugs from your rocking chair. Plant Your Roots: It is rare to come by available leases within the University Gates, but just outside those gates are opportunities to buy larger tracts of land on which to build your dream home or rustic mountain retreat. The Cumberland at Sewanee offers five- to ten-acre tracts starting at $40,000 with your choice of forest, lake, or bluff-side properties (southernrealestate.com; tennesseemountainland.com). Timberlake at Sewanee is a new gated 4,000-acre community with home sites from five to fifty acres starting at $48,000 (livesouth.com; timberlakeland.com). RUNNER-UP Berea, KY This lovely redbrick campus is home to Berea College, a top-ranked comprehensive liberal arts school. Both the college and the community are exemplary for sustainable living and conservation. |
||||||||
