tokaok

I only have a few vacation days available this year, i Did the whole Big Euro trip last year. So i wanted to try something different and go Visit Small town USA

Looking to spend ~ 5 days, wanna see some quirky museums, visit some nice natural sights and spend my days relaxing eating in Diners, lil hitch hiking and doing non-big city entertainment.

Any one have any recommendations as to what State i should hit , perhaps a month i should aim for to attend a specific event(county fair, rodeo, etc)

Flying from Vancouver

dippin

Well, I am not originally form the US, but I have lived here for several years. And during those years Ive driven pretty much everywhere, both in the US and Canada, east of the Mississippi, from Miami to northern Quebec. And honestly, hitchhiking isnt as easy or as common over here, so keep that in mind. Now, with that in mind, some of the places which have relatively unique small towns with things to do and see are eastern PA, the Hudson Valley in NY, and Vermont.

If you want to be strict about only going to small towns, I would advise you against most of the states in the so-called deep south (GA, MS, AL, etc.) for 3 reasons: first, as population density is generally low outside of the big metro areas, small towns are relatively far from each other, making it a bit harder to see a lot of stuff in 5 days; the train and public transportation service is much worse than in the NE, which means you wouldnt really have an alternative to hitch hiking; and finally, most deep south states have not been as careful with historic preservation and the such as states up north.

The only exceptions to this would be the coastal towns, but then again they are not really "small towns." I am talking about Savannah, Charleston, etc.

But as I said, I only really know the areas east of the Mississippi.

Plan9

Check out Asheville, NC. It's real unique.

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dippin

It is indeed a nice place, but that brings up a question to the OP: how small is small? That is, when you say small towns, what are you talking about?

Because my response above was only considering really small towns, under 100 thousand people and so on. If you just mean non-large metro area, then yes, there are several cool places in the south as well. Asheville, Savannah, Charleston (as mentioned), Athens, Chapel Hill, Chattanooga and so on...

flstf

Maybe fly into Rapid City, South Dakota and stay in a small town close by like Deadwood. Attractions close by are Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower and the Black Hills are beautiful in the summer. I have only been there on my Harley so don't have the perspective of doing it by car. They have a huge motorcyle rally in early August so you may want to avoid that if you are driving a car.

djtestudo

Honestly, if you really want to see "Small Town USA", I would say the best thing to do would be to find an area where there is a lot of close contact between different sub-cultures, fly into a central location and just drive around the region. Five days can cover a lot of ground, especially if you choose a region like where I live (outside Baltimore) that has urban and rural, small town and big city, north and south, Atlantic-coastal and Appalachia all within reasonably close distance, plus major attractions (Washington, several Civil War battlefields, etc.) within driving distance.

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kurty[B]

You can hit a deer outside of Newcastle, Wyoming and get stuck there for a week while waiting for your car to get fixed.

My definition of small town is less than 10,000 people, and when I think of visiting small towns I think of the mountain town throughout Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. Seeing that you are from Vancouver, if I were going to hang out in small mountain towns I would just hitchhike Canada Highway 1 to Revelstoke and back.

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ASU2003

This is a tough one. I understand what you are trying to accomplish, but it's not an easy trip. You used to be able to hop in a car in Chicago and take route 66 to LA/Santa Monica and find lots of small towns.

You could go to the UP of Michigan, but that isn't any different than traveling north from Vancouver.

I guess what I would recommend would be to start in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and travel East into South Dakota or Nebraska.

The other option is Northern Arizona to southern New Mexico. Lots of interesting scenery on that trip, and would be different from Canada.

PulpMind

I've always wanted to do Route 66, especially through the southwest. For an enjoyable, romantic take on it, there's always Pixar's Cars. Apparently that movie is actually based on real people and events! NEAT!
But yeah... fly into Oklahoma City or St Louis and drive SW, fly out of LA or or Albequerqui (sp?). Tons of amazing stuff along the way. Small towns and some of the natural wonders that make the US famous (grand canyon, what?)

5 days is a really short trip, though.

Maybe just fly to Montana and read a book in the middle of a giant field.
-----Added 27/1/2009 at 02 : 53 : 40-----
Also,
I live in the Pacific Northwest and there's some amazing small town awesomeness around here, coupled with beautiful scenery. You could head to the coast, somewhere like Astoria and Newport, Oregon and not only see the amazing coast of Oregon (one of the most beautiful in the world), but also experience these really awesome towns and people. Most along the Oregon coast are not as "closed" as small towns in the rest of the country, if you know what I mean. Newport is also home to the Rogue brewery, the 2nd best brewery in the United States (next to Dogfish head out of Vermont).
In Washington, there's the Puget Sound. There's more coastline in "the sound" than the rest of the entire west coast of the united states. cool huh? you can see orcas, go to Victoria (french colonial town) on Vancouver Island (a part of Canada), explore dozens of islands.. and hte people are absolutely amazing.
Washington also has the Hoh Rainforest / Olympic National Park. If your idea of a small town includes Native settlements, national parks, and the only rainforest (temperate) in the United States, then it's a stunning place to visit. Port Angeles is awesome and recieves more tain than most places in the US, and it's only a few miles from Squim, which receives less rain than almost anywhere in the US (those breathtaking mountains will do that).

I love this place.
Feel free to contact me if you want more info on this area. =)

bobby

PulpMind is right on....or you might like to try eastern wash/eastern oregon for a "dry" small town trip...PM me if you want details....xoxoxoo

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cj2112

I would definitely recommend places like Florence, Newport, Seaside, and Bandon, Oregon. I spent my honeymoon in July driving the Oregon Coast. That was one of the best trips I've ever been on.

PulpMind

Oh dang, I just noticed that you're from Vancouver. Good and bad, I guess. I'm sure you're at least familiar with the Puget Sound, if not the entire west coast / pac nw thing. But hey, you only have 5 days and so you won't be wasting much time, even if you drive the whole way

Dammitall

Are you leaning towards staying on or near the West Coast and/or less likely to consider something on the East Coast? If not, I've always been very partial to New England small towns, particularly ones in Vermont with general stores and covered bridges. New England will give you a much different experience than going to a small town in Wyoming, for example.

I'd also second Crompsin's vote for Asheville and djtestudo's suggestion of small towns in the Appalachians. There are plenty of small towns near my own city of Frederick in MD (not far from Baltimore), with lots of Civil War history-type attractions to look into.

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roachboy

alot of the areas mentioned so far seem interesting--i'd go..maybe i will at some point.
new england i know about, though: i'm partial to the coastal areas, which seem to have interesting mixes of uptightness and quirk--and if you get bored, the coastline is itself quite lovely. northern new hampshire and vermont is an alternate surreal little universe--as is upstate in maine. when i was younger, i spent alot of time in all these areas, often in the context of road trips. my favorite would take you through maine to new brunswick and past to nova scotia. though there is much to recommend quebec....it's hard to say. lots of options, though i wouldn't treat the u.s. as a discrete space. think in terms of regions up here. it's much stranger that way.

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guyy

I'd say follow the Mississippi. There are some large cities (e.g., Minneapolis, St. Louis, maybe the Quad Cities depending on your definition of 'big', New Orleans ) and of course, many small ones. The Mississippi river banks tend to be older settlements, more blue collar, a little more interesting politically than their surrounding regions.