Escape to Simplicity
by Ashley Ball
"...my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in."
— Mark Twain, foreword, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Twain succeeded, and then some. Today we remember some of his characters' scrapes so well that they have supplanted our actual memories of childhood. There we are, thinking back to the Roosevelt Junior High Science Fair — the one we threw up at — and out of nowhere comes the image of us whitewashing fences on a sparkling green day or skipping church or having frog races.
Our own recollections aren't that picturesque or charming, but who cares? His are funnier, with better pacing. They're our nostalgia, only better.
Just like really good books, really good towns can give you the childhood you never had.
They make you think you did walk barefoot on cobbled streets. You bundled up in itchy wool sweaters, drinking hot cider in your log cabin. And hey, isn't that you over there, stealing a salty first kiss on the cool, damp, night-beach sand?
Even if your actual vacations were spent: playing hearts on the porch and listening to the screen door slam (summer) or shoveling the driveway under a rain of sibling-propelled iceballs (winter), these quaint towns evince a jolt of recognition. You should have been born here. You should have had your idyllic, romantic, rugged, outdoorsy, carefree childhood here.
Get it now.
Myprimetime.com, with the help of escapehomes.com, has gathered the purest, most evocative towns in the country, wonderful vacation destinations or sites for second homes. Even better, each listing features climate and cultural information, real estate contacts, and calendars of events.
But then, you already know what's going on, don't you? It's your hometown, after all.
Featured Quaint Towns:
