One Utah Small Town Makes Good Housekeeping List, Can You Guess It?

The other day when I was coming home, I had to sit through three cycles to get across the intersection of Main Street and 200 North. While a far cry from spending endless hours on the freeways of Southern California to travel 20 miles or so, it was a reminder that our little town isn't so little anymore.

That's ok, but I've never made it a secret that I enjoyed growing up in a town with a population comparable to Parowan.

There's something irresistibly charming about small towns that makes you want to stay a little longer, even if it's just to figure out why there are more antique stores than people. These places have a unique way of making you feel like you're in on a big secret that the rest of the world is too busy to notice. You can tell you're in a small town when the traffic report consists of one guy named Bob calling in to say he saw a squirrel crossing Main Street. Bob’s a reliable source. Apologies to Captain Craig.

Small towns have a way of making time slow down, which is great if you’ve ever wished you could add more hours to your day. However, this also means that the "new" movie at the theater might have been released sometime during the last presidential administration. But that's okay because, in a small town, the charm isn't about keeping up with the latest trends—it's about enjoying the simple things, like Friday night football games, homemade pies, and the annual debate over whether the Christmas lights should come down before or after Valentine's Day.

Anyway, the folks at Good Housekeeping have compiled a list of the 50 best small towns in America to visit for a charming weekend. Spoiler alert, Utah has a whooping one entry on the list.

I'll let you stew on that for a moment and chime in that the parameters for this list are based on a place to go for a weekend visit, and not a place to put down roots. So the folks at Good Housekeeping were probably considering ongoing outdoor recreation activities, cultural activities, dining opportunities, along with other diversionary activities.

Oh, and antique stores.

Now the towns listed in the Good Housekeeping article had an average population of 5,000, so I can see some of the towns that are a little over that threshold not making the list.

But offhand, given the parameters, two towns on our area I believe are sorely missing from the list.

Located at the entrance to Zion National Park, it seems to me that Springdale would have been worthy of consideration. The town never really goes into winter hibernation mode, Zion, while visitation declines somewhat in the off peak seasons is rarely lacking visitors.

And I think Kanab would also have made a great entry from Utah. From there you can get to the Corral Sand Dunes, make your way over to Lake Powell, and come winter time you can head up to Jacob Lake.

But none of that seemed to impress Good Housekeeping. Their choice for a small town getaway in Utah is over on the eastern part of southern Utah in the form of Moab. I get it, Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, the Colorado river, and the Red Rocks. I see the appeal.

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As far as I am concerned, Utah has a lot more than one small town to offer either for visiting, or for a more permanent situation. In a world that’s always rushing forward, small towns remind us that sometimes it’s nice to take a step back and savor the quiet moments—preferably with a cup of coffee from the local café.