New York’s ‘Coolest’ Town is in the Mohawk Valley

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, there's been a migration from larger cities and an interest in the safer, simpler pleasures of smaller towns. We've got a lot of interesting small towns and villages all over New York State, but only one can be "the coolest," according to FarAndWide.com.

The website researched a number of key sources, such as U.S. News & World Report, Reader's Digest, Architectural Digest, The Travel Channel and House Beautiful magazine, in order to arrive at its definitive list of America's Coolest Towns State by State. These are charming smaller towns, many of which have been instrumental in forming, Far & Wide says, "the backbone of the nation."

And the Empire State's coolest town is...Cooperstown. FarAndWide.com says the "cheerful village is lined with quaint shops, restaurants, art galleries and museums, farming and, of course, baseball."

The home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame sits in the southern portion of the Mohawk Valley (located at home plate if the Mohawk Valley were a baseball diamond), and is situated at the southern tip of picturesque Otsego Lake.

Cooperstown's in good company. A few of the other "cool" U.S. towns, according to Far & Wide, include:

• Mystic, Connecticut
• Bar Harbor, Maine
• Ocean City, Maryland
• Taos, New Mexico
• Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
• Stowe, Vermont
• Williamsburg, Virginia