8 of the Most Quaint Small Towns in the Northern United States

Mackinac Island banned automobiles in 1898 and has held the line every year since. Old Saybrook has been a working seaside community since 1635. Nauvoo holds the only Latter-day Saint temple ever rebuilt to original design on its original foundation. Decorah runs the country's largest Norwegian-American museum across 12 historic buildings. The towns on this list are small-scale places that still do the small-scale thing they have always done. Eight of them ahead.

Old Saybrook, Connecticut

Old Saybrook was settled in 1635 by John Winthrop the Younger at the mouth of the Connecticut River and has been a working seaside community ever since. The General William Hart House (1767) on Main Street covers the early colonial period through period rooms and the 1759 Hart Sand Box (one of two pre-Revolutionary "sand box" rooms in New England, where colonial-era homeowners covered floors in fresh sand to absorb spills). The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center (locally called "The Kate") inside the 1911 Old Saybrook Town Hall runs a year-round performing arts schedule and the Hepburn-archive museum (Hepburn summered in the Fenwick borough from age six and lived there full-time during her last seven years).

The Lynde Point Lighthouse (1838) and the Saybrook Breakwater Lighthouse (1886) both rise from the Connecticut River mouth. Harvey's Beach faces Long Island Sound at the south end of town. Founders Memorial Park is the local sunset spot, with benches looking out over the river.

Nauvoo, Illinois

Nauvoo (population about 950) overlooks a bend in the Mississippi River in western Illinois and was the largest city in Illinois in 1844 with more than 12,000 Latter-day Saints residents (briefly exceeding Chicago's population). The town's identity centers on the Nauvoo Illinois Temple, originally completed in 1846, destroyed by arson in 1848 and a tornado in 1850, and reconstructed in 2002 on the original foundation to the original 1846 design (the only LDS temple ever rebuilt this way).

The Nauvoo Historic District preserves restored Latter-day Saint sites including the Joseph & Emma Smith Mansion House, the John and Elizabeth Browning Home and Gun Shop (where John M. Browning's father Jonathan Browning made the firearms that eventually became the Browning company), and the Brigham and Ann Young Home. The Nauvoo Pageant runs outdoor evening performances each July and August with cast members in 1840s costume. The town also runs an active blue cheese aging cave (Baxter's Vineyards, founded 1857, is the oldest winery in Illinois).

Meredith, New Hampshire

Meredith sits between Lake Waukewan and Meredith Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire (Winnipesaukee is the largest lake in the state at 71 square miles). The Meredith Sculpture Walk runs a free year-round outdoor exhibition of more than 40 large-scale rotating works along the lakefront and through the village center.

Winter brings the New England Pond Hockey Classic to the frozen bay each February, drawing over 250 teams of four players each to a tournament that started in 2010. Hermit Woods Winery and Eatery on Main Street serves dry-style fruit wines made from local blueberries, elderberries, and cranberries. Funspot in nearby Weirs Beach holds the world's largest arcade with more than 600 classic video and pinball games. Laverack Nature Trail covers a short waterfront loop for an easy walk before dinner.

Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Stockbridge in western Massachusetts sits along the Housatonic River in the Berkshires, with a year-round population around 2,000. The Mission House on Main Street was built in 1739 by Reverend John Sergeant as a mission to the Mohican people; the National Trust for Historic Preservation now runs it as a museum. Naumkeag, the Joseph Choate summer estate designed by McKim, Mead & White and completed in 1885, holds eight acres of landscaped gardens designed by Fletcher Steele including the famous Blue Steps (a 1938 staircase of 47 steps painted Tiffany blue, one of the most photographed garden installations in the country).

The Norman Rockwell Museum on the south side of town holds the largest collection of original Rockwell artwork in the world (Rockwell lived in Stockbridge from 1953 until his death in 1978, painting Main Street, the town's volunteer firemen, and the local diner). The Berkshire Theatre Festival, founded in 1928 in the original 1887 Stockbridge Casino building, runs three summer seasons of plays.

Egg Harbor, Wisconsin

Egg Harbor is one of the smaller Door County villages with a year-round population around 400 (the summer population swells well past 5,000). The town sits on a natural inlet of Lake Michigan and runs on a mix of cherry orchards (Door County is the third-largest tart-cherry producer in the US), working waterfront, and small-batch shops. Egg Harbor Beach is the main public swim spot, with calm shallow water and a view across to the marina.

Cappaert Contemporary Gallery handles local visual art inside a 19th-century farmhouse. The Peg Egan Performing Arts Center is the outdoor summer venue, running free Tuesday-evening concerts June through August. One Barrel Brewing Company Door County pours flights and runs trivia nights. Harbor View Park is the easiest place to drop a blanket and watch the sun go down over Green Bay.

Grand Marais, Minnesota

Grand Marais (population about 1,300) is the unofficial hub of Minnesota's North Shore on Lake Superior. The Angry Trout Café handles fresh lake fish on a deck right above the harbor water. The Grand Marais Lighthouse at the end of the breakwater is a short walk from downtown. Lake Park covers the swimming and picnic spot in summer.

North House Folk School runs more than 500 traditional-craft workshops a year covering timber framing, sourdough baking, kayak building, blacksmithing, and Finnish-style sauna construction. Artist Point at the far end of the harbor breakwater is the most-photographed spot in town. Pincushion Mountain Trail covers the hiking and mountain biking side from the bluff above town.

Decorah, Iowa

Decorah holds the unusual position of being the cultural center of Norwegian-American heritage in the United States. Vesterheim, the National Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School, runs the largest collection of Norwegian-American artifacts in the world across 12 historic buildings on Water Street. The town sits in the Driftless Area (an unglaciated pocket of bluffs and spring-fed trout streams) that defines the Upper Iowa River corridor.

Dunning's Spring Park covers a 200-foot waterfall in a narrow gorge close to downtown. Phelps Park covers Victorian-era stonework, cobblestone steps, and small wooden bridges along the river bluff. Luther College, founded in 1861 by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants, anchors the small-college calendar with the Vesterheim folk art school running rosemaling (traditional Norwegian decorative painting) workshops year-round.

Mackinac Island, Michigan

Mackinac Island sits in Lake Huron between Michigan's Lower and Upper Peninsulas and has banned automobiles since 1898 (one of the few places in the United States that bans cars by ordinance, with exceptions only for emergency vehicles and snowmobiles in winter). Travel on the island happens by bike, horse-drawn carriage, or on foot. Ferries from Mackinaw City and St. Ignace cover the access.

Fort Mackinac, an 18th-century British and American military post on the bluff above downtown, runs interpretive programs and cannon firings through the summer season. Mackinac Island State Park covers more than 80 percent of the island's land area, with Sunset Rock, Arch Rock, and Devil's Kitchen as the most-visited landmarks along the loop trails. The Grand Hotel on the bluff has been open since 1887 and houses the world's longest covered porch at 660 feet. Pink Pony at the Chippewa Hotel handles the harbor-front bar scene.

Eight Towns On Walking Scale

Each of the eight towns above is small enough to walk in an afternoon and substantial enough to fill a long weekend. Old Saybrook holds 390 years of working seaside life at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Nauvoo runs a rebuilt 1840s LDS temple on its original foundation. Stockbridge holds the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Blue Steps at Naumkeag. Meredith runs a Lake Winnipesaukee sculpture walk and pond-hockey tournament. Egg Harbor pours Door County cherry-flavored everything. Grand Marais teaches Finnish sauna construction at a working folk school. Decorah holds the country's largest Norwegian-American museum. Mackinac Island has not allowed cars since 1898. Pick the walking-scale anchor that fits the weekend.