Adventure City, U.S.A

By ANTHONY CLARK
Sun business editor

9:22 am, August 29, 2007

Gainesville has been included in yet another "best of" list, this time in National Geographic Adventure magazine's "50 Best Places to Live and Play."

It is featured in the September edition and online at www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure.

"Home to the University of Florida's championship football and basketball teams, this sports-crazed city makes playtime a priority," the article says. "From town, pedal the 16-mile Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail, . . . to Paynes Prairie Preserve, alongside alligators, bison and wild horses."

Writer Dan Koeppel said by telephone Tuesday that the main criteria to make the list is the availability of outdoor recreation activities.

"We're not talking about climbing Mount Everest," he said. "It's oriented more toward everyday weekend activities like bike riding, hiking, how quickly can you access the outdoors and get that quality experience."

Unlike past Adventure lists, the magazine chose one town from each state, then placed them in the categories Top Wilderness Towns, Top Small Towns, Top Mountain Towns, Top Waterfront Towns and, including Gainesville, Top Cities.

Koeppel said the list balances places people would like to visit and live in.

"Gainesville is probably weighted a little more towards living than visiting," he said. "I think Florida is a known for a lot of people so we wanted to look at some of the places people might pick in Florida and find somewhere that seemed more reasonable, especially for someone moving out of a bigger, more expensive city."

The listing comes in addition to other recent honors, including:

1. No. 1 ranking among 400 U.S. and Canadian cities in the book "Cities Ranked and Rated."
2. No. 8 among the "Top Ten Value Towns for Those Considering Retirement in 2007."
3. No. 11 on an AARP list of "Best Places to Reinvent Your Life."
4. The "Most Technologically Advanced City" in Florida by Popular Science magazine.
5. No. 12 in Forbes Magazine's list of best places to do business and have a career.
6. No. 3 small college town for real estate investment by Nuwireinvestor.com.
7. That's on top of three national collegiate sports championships in basketball and football within about a year's time.
8. In 1995, Money Magazine named Gainesville America's most livable city.

Upon hearing about the Adventure list, Roland Loog, director of the Alachua County Visitors and Convention Bureau, started making plans to generate yet more publicity.

"It will certainly be something we transmit in press releases to travel writers all over the country," he said. "We're going to the Southeast Outdoor Press Association conference. This is the kind of press we hand to each one of them because we also want them to bring their next conference here."

Gainesville City Manager Russ Blackburn said the lists remind residents what they have.

"The longer you live in a place, it's very easy to take what you have for granted, to not recognize that you do live in a special place and these national rankings by different organizations and institutions really remind the current residents that they have something to be proud of."

Among the top 50 adventure towns, only one received a specific ranking: Las Vegas was named the No. 1 Adventure town - and it had nothing to do with casinos.

"Hikers, mountain bikers and rock climbers have discovered a backcountry playground just beyond Sin City's limits," Koeppel wrote.

 

For more information contact...

Matt Thomas
(352) 494-0194
MattThomas@BosshardtRealty.com

 

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