America's Best Up-and-coming Small Towns

The funky music lodge the Purple Fiddle launched the rebirth of this surprisingly beautiful old coal town buried deep in the Allegheny Mountains, which now draws weekenders from Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh. Its main street, formerly deserted, now contains a third-wave coffeehouse, a vintage-record store, a craft brewery, art galleries, and smartly curated antiques shops.

This laid-back hot-springs town and ski village in the Rockies three hours south of Denver, has become a year-round retreat for artsy, free-spirited folks who would never go to Vail, even if they could afford it. For visitors, there's the Amigo Motor Lodge, a swanky Southwestern "boutique motel."

Once called the Williamsburg of the Hudson Valley by the New York Times, this tiny hamlet (where Marc Chagall lived and painted in the 1940s) attracts New Yorkers with its hip vintage stores and urbane comfort food at restaurants like Kitchenette, opened in 2014 by team of restaurateurs previously based in Tribeca.

The luxury furniture designer Tyler Hays raised the profile of this farming community in the foothills of the Wallowa Mountains when he revamped the old country store M. Crow & Co., which now sells collectible furniture and artisanal knickknacks alongside meat, vegetables, and hardware. Now enough people make the trek out from Portland (five hours away) to support a high-concept hostelry, the Kickstarter-funded Jennings Hotel, in an old brick building in the neighboring town of Joseph.

Recently named a UNESCO "Creative City," this little town two hours from Nashville and three hours from Louisville presents an interesting case of urban renewal on a small scale: as recently as the 1980s, its classic main street was mostly vacant, but following $100 million in investment and an artist-relocation program, the historic district now generates $200 million in annual tourist revenue. The 1857, a 10-room boutique hotel in a historic building within view of the Ohio River, is a testament to the town's reinvention.

This old mill town on the southern slope of Mount Shasta, in far northern California has become popular with all manner of nature lovers, from spelunkers to fly fishermen. It's surrounded by more than 1 million acres of national forest and has a busy downtown that's full not only of bike shops and camping outfitters but also great restaurants and cafes.

That Old Florida feeling reigns supreme in this historic village about an hour north of Orlando, which is surrounded by a chain of about 1,400 small lakes. Dine on top-notch Floribbean cuisine from a James Beard Award-winning chef at 1921 by Norman Van Aken, and take in the retro atmosphere is from a rocking chair on the porch of the Victorian-era Lakeside Inn, the oldest continually operating hotel in the state, which has been carefully renovated by a new owner in recent years.