Milford makes U.S. ‘top ten coolest' list

MILFORD — Look out world, Milford’s coming at you. After learning in June that a book had named the borough among America’s top outdoor towns in “101 Best Outdoor Towns,” this week we’ve learned that Milford is also very “cool.” The September issue of Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine hails Milford, given the order in which the towns are listed, as the second “coolest small town” in the U.S. After offering congratulations, magazine and BudgetTravel.com Editor, Erik Torkells, told the Courier, “The editors of Budget Travel did the choosing, based on reports from our wide network of freelance writers (who travel more than we do!). We ask them to submit towns, and then we weigh the towns against each other.” Their finalists had to have that “something more” feeling to make the list, Torkells said. “The 10 finalists are the ones that really had a sense that something exciting is happening there — usually because outsiders are moving in and opening businesses,” he said. “I go on a road trip every year and it always kills me how many wonderful small towns feel like they’re dying. We wanted to do a story that spotlights the ones where people are working hard to make them thrive. What we look for are towns that sound like we’d want to go there, even dream about living there. Places where the quality of life is high (you can get a good cup of coffee) but the pace is slower, and the people have their priorities right. “We considered about 50 towns this year. A lot of them sound lovely, but more quaint than cool. The difference (to us anyway) is that ‘cool’ implies that there’s a momentum in the town, that it’s more than just a place with pretty buildings,” Torkells concluded. Budget Travel magazine claims a monthly readership of over two million, and some 400,000 monthly hits on the magazine’s Web site. 10 COOLEST SMALL TOWNS • Millerton, N.Y. • Milford, Pa. • Yachats, Ore. • Waitsburg, Wash. • Paia, Hawaii • Parkville, Mo. • Silver City, N.M. • Peterborough, N.H. • Tuscumbia, Ala. • Collinsville, Conn. Source: Budget Travel magazine