The heat is on but does Ogden really want to be number one? Just look want has happened to Park City since the historic Utah mining town showed up on several “best” lists. We have a Five Guys and Vail Resorts for s&*t sake. Still, an email arrived in my inbox begging to get the vote out for Outside Magazine’s Best Towns poll. It’s one thing to rave to your friends and family about how amazing your hometown is to live in- and Ogden is one killer draw. It’s another to be featured in “America’s preeminent active and adventure lifestyle” magazine as the “best town in America”. Once that starts happening, there’s no turning back. Companies like Salomon, Suunto, eBay, Del Taco and Best Buy arrive and suddenly life isn’t so quaint anymore. The reasons you relocated are muddied.

 

We love a vibrant mountain town- the kind of place with locally sourced (non-chain) restaurants, active farmers’ markets, where everyone knows your name and hiking and biking trails are steps from your doorstep.

The voting is now open for Outside’s favorite towns. It starts with a bracket made up of 60 towns selected by OUTSIDE editors and four Wild Card Entries. Readers picked the Wild Cards through a social media-driven voting process on Instagram which used the hashtag #BestTowns2015. Over 6,000 images were posted but Roanoke, VA; Port Angeles, WA; New York, NY and Saugatuck, MI came out on top

You have the next six weeks to vote once per round for each of the six rounds. The winners of each round advance until the final two towns face off for the Best Town of 2015.

OUTSIDE will feature the final 16 towns in its September 2015 issue if you don’t feel like doing your own Googling sooner.

Ogden is representing Utah but I BEG of you, please. Don’t vote for us. Ogden is the WORST town in America. Stay away! The air is clean, the crime is low, it’s at the foot of a gorgeous mountain range with world-class resort and backcountry skiing for miles; traffic, what traffic? You’d absolutely hate it here. You’re way better off in Glenwood Springs, Colo. Or Vegas.

Here are the 64 towns; grouped by region in seeded brackets.

EAST

Annapolis, MD; Bar Harbor, ME; Brattleboro, VT; Cold Spring, NY; East Stoudsburg, PA; Elmira, NY; Lake Placid, NY; Lebanon, NH; Middlebury, VT; New Haven, CT; Northampton, MA; Pittsburgh, PA; Portsmouth, NH; Providence, RI; Red Bank, NJ; New York, NY

 

SOUTH

Alpine, TX; Athens, GA; Beaufort, SC; Bentonville, AR; Birmingham, AL; Boone, NC; Charlottesville, VA; Chattanooga, TN; Fayetteville, WV; Houston, TX; Ocala, FL; Oxford, MS; Raleigh-Durham, NC; Savannah, GA; Tampa, FL; Roanoke, VA

 

MIDWEST

Bellaire, MI; Berea, KY; Columbus, OH; Detroit, MI; Eau Claire, WI; Ely, MN; Evanston, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Iowa City, IA; Kansas City, MO; Milwaukee, WI; Rapid City, SD; Rochester, MN; Spearfish, SD; Yellow Springs, OH; Saugatuck, MI

 

WEST

Ashland, OR; Bainbridge Island, WA; Flagstaff, AZ; FT. Bragg, CA; Glenwood Springs, CO; Hilo, HI; Juneau, AK; Las Vegas, NV; Ogden, UT; Pagosa Springs, CO; Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Fe, NM; Sheridan, WY; Victor, ID; Whitefish, MT; Port Angeles, WA

View the Best Towns bracket here.