10 Coolest The United States Towns For A Summer Vacation
Summer in the United States comes in too many flavours to count. The ten towns below sit in ten different states and run on ten different draws. Cannon Beach has Oregon coastline, sea stacks, and breweries. Bar Harbor opens onto Acadia and the family-friendly Ocean Path. Silverton sits over 9,300 feet up in the San Juans, and Solvang drops a corner of Denmark into the California foothills. Deadwood preserves a Gold Rush main street in full. Lake Placid still runs on its two Winter Olympics. The mix below stretches across the country and rewards just about any kind of summer trip plan.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
Cannon Beach runs four miles of open Pacific sand under one of the most photographed sea stacks in North America: the 235-foot Haystack Rock, walkable at low tide and home to nesting tufted puffins in summer. Ecola State Park sits on the bluff to the north with viewpoints down the coast that Lewis and Clark themselves stopped to admire in 1806. The downtown is small but tightly packed: art galleries, surf shops, and the kind of seafood restaurants that source rockfish out of the boats parked at the dock. Pelican Brewing Company runs an oceanfront taproom on the south end. Public Coast Brewing pairs its lineup with a serious in-house kitchen. Cannon Beach also works as a base for the broader north Oregon coast: Astoria and the Columbia River mouth sit 30 minutes north.
Bar Harbor, Maine
Bar Harbor sits at the edge of Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island and runs as the practical base for everything inside the park. The 2.2-mile Ocean Path along the eastern shoreline is the easy walk for any age, with Thunder Hole, Otter Cliff, and Sand Beach lined up along its length. Cadillac Mountain (1,530 feet) is the highest point on the US Atlantic seaboard; from October 7 through March 6, it sees the first sunrise in the continental United States, though in summer that distinction shifts north to Mars Hill. The town itself is built for summer. Jordan Pond House has been serving its hot popovers and lawn tea since the 1890s. Ben & Bill's Chocolate Emporium on Main Street is the long-running source of the famously divisive lobster ice cream. Whale-watching boats and Porcupine Islands kayak tours run daily out of the town pier. The Abbe Museum on Mount Desert Street covers the Wabanaki heritage of the island.
Solvang, California
Solvang was founded in 1911 by a group of Danish-American educators who wanted a community where the language and traditions of Denmark could be preserved on the West Coast. The architecture they built (and the architecture later residents kept building) makes the village core look more transplanted than built: bindingsværk timber-framing, copper roofs, and four working Danish windmills along Mission Drive. The Elverhøj Museum covers the actual history. Copenhagen Sausage Garden handles the outdoor lunch with Santa Ynez Valley wines on tap. Solvang sits in the heart of the Santa Ynez Valley wine region, with dozens of tasting rooms walkable from the downtown core. Solvang Festival Theater, a 700-seat outdoor venue, runs touring music and theatre all summer. South of town, Nojoqui Falls drops 80 feet into a fern-filled canyon, and the River Course at Alisal lays an 18-hole layout along the Santa Ynez River.
Deadwood, South Dakota
Deadwood is a National Historic Landmark in its entirety, the only one of its kind anywhere in the United States. Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead at a poker table in Saloon No. 10 on August 2, 1876; he and Calamity Jane are buried side by side at Mount Moriah Cemetery on the hill above town. The Adams Museum and the Adams House (restored to its 1892 finish) hold most of the documentary side of the story. Days of '76, the rodeo every July that the town has run since 1924, brings serious PRCA competition to the arena above Main Street. Gaming is still legal on Main Street under a special 1989 South Dakota law, so the saloons are working casinos as well as historic-recreation venues. Outside town, the 109-mile George S. Mickelson Trail (a former rail-grade run that connects Deadwood south through the Black Hills to Edgemont) is the long crushed-limestone spine of the Black Hills. Mount Rushmore is an hour south, the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway 30 minutes north.
Lake Placid, New York
Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympics in 1932 and again in 1980 (the only town to do so until Sapporo and Innsbruck joined the two-time list later), and the Herb Brooks Arena where the US men's hockey team beat the Soviet Union in the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" still runs as a working venue and the centre of the town's Olympic Center and Museum. The town sits in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, which means summer turns the surrounding mountains into one of the densest hiking networks in the eastern United States. Mirror Lake (not Lake Placid itself; Mirror Lake is the smaller lake in front of downtown) carries a 2.7-mile paved path around its full circumference, ideal for low-effort walks with the High Peaks across the water. Trailheads for Mount Jo, Cascade Mountain, and the much longer haul up Mount Marcy (5,344 feet, the highest point in New York State) all sit within fifteen minutes of downtown.
Columbia Falls, Montana
Columbia Falls sits fifteen minutes from the West Glacier entrance to Glacier National Park, which makes it the closest practical base for the park's Going-to-the-Sun Road (one of the most dramatic alpine drives in the country, fully open from mid-June through mid-September depending on snow). The Flathead River runs along the south edge of downtown, and rafting outfitters including Glacier Guides put trips on the river daily through summer. Backslope Brewing pours its lineup downtown. The Gunsight Saloon books live music on summer nights. The Columbia Falls Community Market every Thursday brings food trucks, farmers, and artists onto Nucleus Avenue. Hungry Horse Reservoir, a few minutes east, runs alpine swimming holes and trailheads with a fraction of Glacier's crowds. Flathead Lake, half an hour south, is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi and one of the cleanest large lakes in the country.
Fredericksburg, Texas
Fredericksburg was founded in 1846 by German settlers under John Meusebach's treaty with the Penateka Comanche (one of the very few US frontier treaties to actually hold), and the town's German heritage still anchors the food, the architecture, and the Texas Hill Country wine industry that has built up around it. The National Museum of the Pacific War (built around the boyhood home of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was born in Fredericksburg in 1885) is one of the most extensive WWII Pacific-theatre museums in the country. Altdorf Biergarten and Otto's serve the schnitzel-and-spätzle end of dining. Fredericksburg sits at the centre of Texas Hill Country wine country, with around 100 wineries within an hour of town. Jenschke Orchards and Vogel Orchard run u-pick peaches every June and July. Twenty minutes north, Enchanted Rock State Natural Area covers a massive 425-foot pink-granite dome, the second-largest pluton in the United States.
Silverton, Colorado
Silverton sits at 9,318 feet in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, one of the highest year-round-populated towns in the lower 48 and one of the only intact silver-rush mining towns left in the West. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad runs a 1881-era steam train 45 miles along the Animas River canyon between Silverton and Durango, a three-and-a-half-hour ride and the principal way most visitors arrive in summer. The whole town centre is a National Historic Landmark District, anchored by the 1882 Grand Imperial Hotel on Greene Street. The San Juan County Historical Society's Mining Heritage Center covers the silver-rush story. Outside the town, the surrounding San Juans hold some of the most concentrated alpine hiking in Colorado: Ice Lakes Basin is the marquee day-hike, the Alpine Loop runs three high passes accessible by 4x4, and the Animas Forks ghost town sits twelve miles north on a route open from June through September.
Sandpoint, Idaho
Sandpoint sits on the northern shore of Lake Pend Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle, a glacially-carved lake 1,150 feet deep at its deepest point, the fifth-deepest lake in the United States. The 7,000-resident town runs as the commercial anchor for the Panhandle. City Beach Park at the foot of First Avenue handles the public swimming-and-launch access on the lake. Downtown is small but works: Evans Brothers Coffee Roasters, MickDuff's Brewing Company, and Pend d'Oreille Winery all sit within a few blocks, and the 1927 Panida Theater on First Avenue still books live music and films in its restored interior. The Festival at Sandpoint every August runs a two-week outdoor concert series on the lakefront. Schweitzer Mountain Resort, 20 minutes north, runs its chairlifts in summer for high-elevation hiking and downhill mountain biking, and the Kaniksu National Forest sits immediately west with a serious trail network.
Beaufort, South Carolina
Beaufort (pronounced BYOO-furt, not Bofort as in North Carolina) sits on Port Royal Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry and runs the second-oldest city in South Carolina after Charleston. The town's National Historic Landmark District around Bay Street covers one of the most intact antebellum residential streetscapes anywhere in the South, with the John Mark Verdier House (1804) and the Old Point neighbourhood of live-oak-shaded antebellum mansions as the architectural anchors. Walking-tour operators run the historic-district circuit out of the visitor centre. Beaufort's arts community runs galleries including Rhett Gallery and the Beaufort Water Festival every July fills the lakefront with concerts, fireworks, and the regional Lowcountry boil. Dockside Restaurant covers the working-shrimp-boat seafood end. Just east, Hunting Island State Park runs five miles of undeveloped Atlantic beach, the 1875 Hunting Island Lighthouse (the only state-park lighthouse in South Carolina open to climb), and a maritime forest of palmetto, slash pine, and live oak.
The Ten in One Sentence Each
Cannon Beach for the Pacific and Haystack Rock. Bar Harbor for Acadia. Solvang for Denmark in California. Deadwood for the gold-rush main street still standing. Lake Placid for two Olympics and the High Peaks. Columbia Falls for Glacier without the park-gateway prices. Fredericksburg for German Hill Country and Texas wine. Silverton for the highest functional town centre in the West. Sandpoint for the deepest lake on the list. Beaufort for the Lowcountry. The ten towns spread across the country and across every kind of summer trip the country produces.
