If you're looking to move to the great state of Arizona to escape those big-city feels, one small town may top the rest. According to Thrillist Travel, the state is home to one of the best small cities in the U.S. -- but you'd better hurry before too many people catch on.
Once named Arizona's prettiest town, Bisbee can add another accolade to its long list of bragging rights: One of the country "best small cities to move to before they get too popular."
Although that's quite the title for the ol' former-mining-turned-artistic town, it's well-deserved.
I mean, have you ever been there? Thrillist called it a "mountain-ringed artist's haven in the middle of the Sonoran Desert."
In compiling the list, the online media brand talked to dozens of writers around the U.S. to find out in which small cities they'd even think about putting roots down. The max population was limited to 70,000.
Here's what Jackie Bryant wrote of Bisbee:
Southeast of Tucson and 20 minutes north of Mexico are the Mule Mountains, wherein lies Bisbee, a world unto its own. Driving into the town is a thrill: you arrive from above, via a mountain tunnel, dropping past the homes, art galleries, and cute shops that now populate this old copper mining town formerly filled with brothels and bars. Today the town is less about vice and more about cheap living in an eclectic high-desert town. The average house will cost just $130K; your neighbors will be a mix of rough-and-tumble miners, writers, painters, old-school hippies, new-wave hippies, and recovering yuppies -- including artists and University of Arizona academics who have decamped from the "big city” two hours away. Tucson’s residents flee to these mountains in the summer, as Bisbee’s mile-high elevation means a respite from the searing desert heat. They, like you, come to chill and slow down. Just remember there's a wild and fascinating universe in any direction just over the mountains.
You make Arizona proud, Bisbee!
