Coolest Small Cities in America

Want a real break? Forget the hassle of getting in and out of America's metropolises—with their $400 hotel rooms and mobbed tourist attractions. Instead, hit these miniopolises, where top-notch food comes straight from the farm and your third round is on the house. Here are eight reasons to downsize your next vacation.

Charleston, South Carolina

Mind-blowing shrimp 'n' grits just minutes from an awesome southern surf scene. To wake up under the ornate fourteen-foot ceilings of the Wentworth Mansion is to wonder if some southern heiress took you home with her the night before. The stately digs were once the city's finest home, and they make you feel not like you live in Charleston but like you own it.

Plus, you're within walking distance of the Hominy Grill and its unparalleled shrimp 'n' grits—a dish that earns its place on breakfast, brunch, and lunch/dinner menus, and makes you want to stretch out on your daybed at the Mansion.

Instead, follow signs to Folly Beach and keep heading east along the water until you're past the cars parked under the palmetto trees. You can sleep off breakfast in the sun, but between the temperate climate and generally mellow swell, it's a good place to pick up surfing—or to shred if you can. Southern hospitality extends to the water: You won't find friendlier locals on the East Coast.

Courtesy of Dave Cleaveland/Maine Imaging

Portland, Maine

You can walk anywhere in this town — even in December. Here are your marching orders.

Fore Street is one of America's best restaurants, but skip the dining room for a dozen oysters at the bar—where the barmen greet you as if it were your private club—and wash them down with an iced Maine vodka or a microbrew. You're a three-minute walk from the happy-hour crowd at J's Oyster, which offers a harbor view, oysters for $7 per half dozen, and Christmas lights that never come down.

It's a forty-minute ferry ride to Diamond Cove—the kind of island where George H. W. Bush pulls up on his cigarette boat. The lobster roll from the Diamond Cove General Store involves an entire lobster, steamed to order. Crisscross the island on footpaths (no cars are allowed) and, at low tide, trek across a sandbar to Little Diamond Island to catch the ferry back.

Courtesy of Ryan Heffernan

Santa Fe, New Mexico

The air is thin in the country's highest state capital, but it's always perfect riding weather here. Mount up a dual-suspension Rocky Mountain 29er at Mellow Velo, because extra-large wheels carry momentum on swoopy high-desert terrain and city streets alike. It's a fifteen-minute pedal to Cerro Gordo Road, where a left turn after the pavement ends will dump you into the Dale Ball Trails, a well-marked thirty-mile network of single-track. If you're just in from sea level, don't feel bad when women jogging with their dogs zip past you.

The Anasazi Indians of New Mexico were cliff dwellers—pioneers of early civilization's precursor to the apartment building. Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi, with its sandstone walls, kiva fireplaces, and handwoven carpets, is a boutique tribute to their ingenuity, and the best hotel in town.

Courtesy of Julian's

Providence, Rhode Island

For years, Providence has been heralded as the arts-and-culture center of New England—in large part by developers who dreamed of replacing the resident artists with Boston yuppies. Thankfully, that dream is dead. Because what Providence lacks in fratty Irish bars, it makes up for with a vibrant art scene and the renegade character of a bastard son.

Nights out begin at AS220, a downtown restaurant, gallery, and art studio—before moving across the highway to West Side bars like the pleasantly divey E&O Tap or Julian's, the epicenter of Providence's scene, where paintings by local artists deck the walls and everyone knows—and likely plays in a band with—everyone else.

The next day, you'll find the same crowd recovering down the street over brunch at Nick's. While you're waiting for a table, browse the shelves at Armageddon Shop, purveyor of Providence-made music and the city's iconic Technicolor silk-screened posters. The clerks may give you a funny look if you tell them you're "on vacation" in Providence; better to say you're just avoiding Boston.

Courtesy of Poole's Downtown Diner

Raleigh, North Carolina - Poole's Downtown Diner

Poole's serves late on Saturday night, and even though you're stuffed with macaroni au gratin and buttermilk fried chicken, you ask the hostess what time they start serving Sunday brunch. It's the triumph of logic over satiation: You will have to eat tomorrow, and this is clearly the best food in town. The polished retro space—once an honest-to-God diner—looks just as good in daylight. The crispy catfish entrée is re-imagined as a BLT; the wine list loses none of its appeal. You'd have to wait till Monday to catch another dinner, which seems like not a bad idea.

Courtesy of ulterior epicure/Flickr

Boulder, Colorado - Frasca

A frasca is an old-school farmers' hangout in Friuli, Italy, but Frasca the restaurant, in a posh piece of Boulder, is a happy cult of new-world Friulian obsessives. Led by chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, they're riffing on the culinary heritage of the Italian region using Colorado's finest produce. If you put Frasca in downtown Manhattan, it would compete with the best Italian restaurants in the city. If you put it in the middle of Friuli, the locals would likely recognize a reflection of their better culinary selves and travel to pay homage, just as we do.

Courtesy of neate_photos/flickr

Athens, Georgia

I'll be fine if I never see another rock show in New York City. The scrum for tickets starts two months ahead of time; the well drinks cost $8. To paraphrase Johnny Paycheck, you can take all that and shove it. Instead, I'll take the scene in Athens. The city's best venues, the 40 Watt Club and the Caledonia Lounge, both host bands that play big venues in big cities and hit all the right notes: cheap cover, good sound.

Getty Images

Louisville, Kentucky

Here's a pocket of our culture where where dirt-cheap field-level tickets are available at the walk-up counter, where kids can run the bases after the game without getting tased. Enjoy the slightly absurd undercurrent. Free gas-card giveaways! Win-or-lose fireworks! Appearances by semifamous local animals! We're fans of the Louisville Bats, a Triple A club that draws more than 8,000 fans per home game. That's just enough to summon a genuine crowd roar, but never enough to jam up the line for the bathroom trough.

Source:Yahoo

World’s Most Amazing Waterfalls

1. Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe

Explorer David Livingstone could be accused of dampening expectations by naming these falls after England’s doughy queen: dour and staid they’re not. The locals, though, got it spot on, calling the falls Mosi-oa-Tunya – ‘the smoke that thunders’. They’re monstrously loud, and the mist rising as the Zambezi River plunges 108m into the gorge below – over 12,000 cubic metres per second at its heaviest flow – rises in vast clouds. See them from above, from below, from Knife Edge Point, from the Devil’s Pool and from Cataract View, at sunrise and by moonlight – just make sure you see them.

Although flow is greatest between April and June, the best time for sunset photography is arguably October to December, when spray is not too heavy.

2. Niagara Falls, USA/Canada

Let’s hear you shout it: Waterfalls are fun! Louder! And again! It’s fortunate that Niagara is so truly awesome (up to 2800 cubic metres per second awesome, since you ask) or the various and extremely numerous shots of
commercialised hokum might overwhelm the sight. But it is, and they don’t – in fact, you’ll probably visit, climb or ride several of the attractions to drink in many facets of the falls. Top of the list has to be a voyage on the Maid of the Mist, the 11th incarnation of the venerable boat that first sailed into the spray in 1846.

Experience the falls on the Maid of the Mist, which sails from April to October.

3. Reichenbach Falls, Switzerland

Elemental, my dear Watson! Set among the deep gorges and rugged peaks of Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, the Reichenbachfälle seem appropriately dramatic as the backdrop for the final stand of Sherlock Holmes. It was at the roaring 250m-high cascades near Meiringen that the famous detective tussled with his arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty, before both tumbled into the cataract in the 1891 tale The Final Problem. Today, Holmes fans flock to the falls, hiking over the top and down to the plaque marking the ledge where the fictional fight is believed to have been set.

For an atmospheric approach, catch the historic cable railway alongside the falls, running from Willingen mid-May to early October.

4. Kaieteur Falls, Guyana

These remote falls may not be the highest, the heaviest or the most famous – but they’re probably the wildest. Secreted away in the lush interior of Guyana – hardly an over-touristed neighbourhood – the Potaro River plummets 250m from a sandstone plateau. On the trail to the falls you might spot vivid blue butterflies, scarlet birds and the golden dart-poison frog; listen for screeching howler monkeys. Then crawl to the edge of the precipitous overhang, and look down at the roaring curtain, with white-collared swifts darting out from behind the cascade. Now, that’s adrenalin.

The falls can be reached on charter flights from Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, or an epic multi-day overland journey involving minibuses, boats and trekking.

5. Iguazú Falls, Argentina/Brazil

Historically, Argentina and Brazil haven’t always been the best at sharing; in fact, they’re usually up for a scrap, whether it’s over land (Uruguay, say) or soccer honours. But at Iguazú – Iguaçu to the Brazilians – the falls to end all falls are apportioned between them. OK, so the biggest drop is a ‘mere’ 82m – but with a staggering 275 cataracts extending for 2.7km along the Iguazú River, the combined might is jaw-dropping. And deafening: don your waterproofs and stroll to the lookout beneath the Garganta do Diabo (Devil’s Throat) to feel the raw power of the cascades.

Brazil’s Parque Nacional do Iguaçu is open 9am to 5pm, later in summer; Argentina’s Parque Nacional Iguazú is open 8am to 6pm.

6. Détiān Falls, China

What is it about waterfalls that encourages pride that verges on ludicrous? Hence Détiān is proclaimed ‘the world’s second-largest waterfall along a national border’ – the gushing 200m-long stretch of cascades straddles China‘s Guǎngxī province and northern Vietnam (though China gets most of the flow). But you don’t come here for the stats, or the tremendous roar of the rushing water, or for the fun of snapping a photo of yourself at the
border marker. You come because it’s gasp-inducingly beautiful: a verdant vision framed by looming karst outcrops and serene rice paddies.

Midsummer is the best time to appreciate the power of the flow; avoid winter, when the falls are relatively thin streams and fog dominates.

7. Gullfoss, Iceland

Iceland is where good geography teachers go when they die: a geological wonderland, its unique otherworldly landscapes go some way to explaining why most Icelanders believe in elves and goblins. Huge glaciers cover over a tenth of the country, hot water spurts at the eponymous Geysir, technicolour mountains loom in the interior, geothermal springs steam – and waterfalls cascade. Gullfoss is a multi-stepped affair that surges down
into a mighty gash carved into the land; magical when the sun sparks rainbows into life, it’s arguably even more enchanting in winter, when snow glistens and rime coats the rocks all around with a sparkling shell.

Gullfoss is easily reached from Reykjavík on a Golden Circle tour, or by bus with Reykjavík Excursions.

8. Sutherland Falls, New Zealand

Unsurprisingly, in the ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’ it rains a fair bit, especially on the wet west coast of the South Island. After the frequent downpours, New Zealand‘s many cataracts gush even more wildly. Milford Sound, that most photogenic fjord, is renowned for the falls streaming down its sides. The best is on the approach, accessible only by hiking the four-day, 53.5km Milford Track: Sutherland Falls, a 580m-high torrent tumbling from a lake perched on the valley walls. If the sun shines, wonderful; if the rain pours – and it probably will – better still.

Walkers on the Milford Track must book places in huts along the route – see www.doc.govt.nz. From October to April you must hike south to north.

9. Jim Jim Falls, Australia

What’s more of a thrill: floating in a remote plunge pool while gazing up at a 215m-high cascade dashing over rust-red rock cliff s? Or wondering whether a 5m-long prehistoric reptile is about to sink its jagged fangs into your leg? At Jim Jim Falls, deep in Kakadu National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory, you get both: a rufty-tufty 4WD track, then a 1km scramble along a rugged trail, leads to this spectacular outpouring. But before you dive into the swimming hole, so tantalisingly cool in the heat of the outback, ask local advice: saltwater crocodiles have been known to lurk here.

Visitors to Kakadu must pay a A$25 park fee; passes can be bought at centres in Darwin, Katherine and the park itself.

10. Angel Falls, Venezuela

Spoiler alert: romantics, look away right now. The world’s highest single-drop falls (979m high in total, with an 807m plunge) are not named for some celestial being – though the sight of this white ribbon plummeting down the side of the mist-cloaked, flat-topped tepui is almost heavenly. No, the moniker honours aviator Jimmie Angel, who in 1933 became the first to overfly the falls. The local Pemón people are more poetic, recognising the falls’ breathtaking height – so tall that in the dry season much of the water evaporates before reaching the bottom – with the name Kerepakupai merú: ‘falls of the deepest place’.

Several operators in nearby Canaima offer overflights and two- or three-day tours in motorised dugout canoes, usually running from May or June to November.

Source:Lonelyplanet