Coolest Small Town in Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota

Our country is dotted with remarkable small towns from coast to coast. That is a given. And what makes one small town cooler than another is definitely in the eye of the beholder at the time and place they happen to be there.

But it is neat that travel websites like Far and Wide just happened to round up the opinions of places like The Travel Channel, Reader's Digest, U.S. News & World Report, Architectural Digest, and House Beautiful to come up with their latest list.

Keeping in mind that there are plenty of wonderful small towns that these organizations haven't visited yet, we'll take a look at what they came up with for the best small towns in our 3 state area.

When it came to Minnesota, they went way up north in the Northstar state. House Beautiful chose Grand Marais as the best small town in our neighbor to the north and east.

They cited the natural beauty, remote location, and amount of activities both on and off the lake, including wine and beer tastings. Which kind of tells you where their heads were at that day! (Wink, wink!)

Iowa's coolest small town, Winterset, came to a lot of people's attention when it became a star of The Bridges of Madison County back in 1995. Or I should say, the bridges around Winterset became stars.

It is also the birthplace of movie star John (The Duke) Wayne and you can visit the museum there in his honor.

There is a festival there every October that celebrates the covered bridges and local heritage.

Finally, the coolest small town in South Dakota, according to Architectural Digest is - Spearfish.

The reasons they chose Spearfish primarily had to do with the amount of outdoor activities that can be found in and around that beautiful Black Hills burg. They also were impressed by Black Hills State and the "thriving artistic community".

Source: Far and Wide