Planning a roadtrip for next month and starting talking about the weird little towns in the US that have a tourist economy. (Population <10K)
Branson, MO is the first one that comes to mind. A little city that has a large amount of theaters with live music.
Wisconsin Dells, WI is like a wet Las Vegas for families with tons of water parks.
Mackinac Island, MI is an island city set back in time with its carless streets.
What other little treasures am I missing?
Savannah, GA
Sedona, AZ
Jackson, WY
Napa, CA
How about Barstow, California and [del]State Line[/del] Primm, Nevada? Most of their economy seems to be based on people travelling to or from Las Vegas, from what I’ve seen.
Eureka Springs, AR
Winthrop, WA
West Yellowstone, MT
Lancaster PA
Williamsburg VA
Haven’t been to any of the others, but Napa is way bigger than 10k. And I suspect most visitors are surprised by how boring and ordinary it is. It’s not particularly cute or quaint.
Sonoma, CA probably fits the bill, though.
eta: Also, no on in their right minds would describe Barstow as a “little treasure”. “Little armpit of hell”, maybe.
Carmel, California (near Monterey)
Camden, Maine
Both are adorable, quaint seaside towns.
Pigeon Forge, TN
Roswell, NM
Ashland, OR
Mostly a ski town though. It does have a few shops downtown. Also has a college. Pretty relaxed, and relatively close to Crater Lake NP, which, IMHO is worth a trip of any distance.
Wow. I read the title, and immediately came up with the three in the OP while the page was loading.
I got nothin’!
A lot of tourists pass through, but I’m not sure I’d call Barstow a “touristy” place. If you were so inclined, you could hit all of the attractions(?) in half a day, tops. There’s nothing to stick around for once you’ve gotten gas or something to eat.
How about Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge?
New Hope, PA.
Provincetown, Mass.
Nantucket, Mass.
Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
I think they’d all qualify - I passed through all these places on a long road trip a few years ago, and they were all pretty quaint and touristy - all enjoyable places to visit too, IMHO.
Santa Barbara, perhaps. I wouldn’t call it quaint though. But it is fairly small, and it is very touristy.
Alexandria Bay, NY
Lake George, NY
Lake Placid, NY
Woodstock, NY
Are you looking for the town itself to be the tourist attraction, in a quaint small-town way, or just for it to be convenient to other tourist attractions? If the latter, then West Yellowstone or Gardner, MT would be candidates, situated at two of the main entrances to Yellowstone National Park. For that matter, Bozeman is within day-trip range of the park, also, and is also close to ski slopes, hiking trails, and other outdoorsy activities, plus has a fair amount of culture in the town itself.
Roswell sucks (and, at >30,000 is bigger than the OP specified) except for the plywood cutout aliens and cheesy alien museums downtown. :rolleyes: <<close as I could come to “little green man” smiley.
However, about 50 miles up the road is Ruidoso, NM. A nice little mountain (skiing) town with cool shops, dining, horse racing in summer and a couple casinos. Last I heard it had a permanent population of about 8-9,000.
Also, if you want to see a somewhat better part of the state (;)), Polson is close to Flathead Lake and reasonably near to Glacier National Park in addition to a lot of skiing and hiking and such in the Rockies, depending on when you come. It’s also within day-trip range of Missoula, which is bigger than what you specified but has most of the culture in the state including many fine restaurants.
Lincoln, Montana is good if and only if you want to do seriously outdoorsy stuff in that part of the Rockies. It’s a fairly small town (1,100) and really has nothing else going for it, but if that’s what you want it’s certainly worth a trip out there.
There’s a current thread somewhere about disappointing places to visit. Branson was listed early therein.