<p>What colleges have the best towns within walking distance? By best towns, I don't mean streets lined with bars or taco bells and gas stations--I like quaint towns with coffeehouses, cute stores and restaurants, and places the students can study. I felt like UNC-Chapel Hill had a town like this, but a lot of colleges seem isolated or their college towns are like a ten-minute drive away.</p>
<p>I spent 6 weeks there last summer! So cute. You can walk to restaurants, Starbucks, and part of the metro area, where there are businesses and work opportunities. they have great college spirit aroiund there too. Although it's more urban than quaint suburban, it is very college oriented...i mean come on...what else is there to do in Syracuse? lol. I loved it!</p>
<p>Dartmouth has a beautiful (albeit small) college town right next to campus.</p>
<p>Montreal has it all (from coffeehouses to cute stores to restaurants to bars and gas stations, but no taco bells). Yeah, it's a city and not a town, but it has slightly more student per capita than Boston.</p>
<p>/and one answer to the OP is definitely not Hamilton</p>
<p>Princeton and Chapel Hill are the two nicest college towns I've been to.</p>
<p>I thoroughly enjoyed Norman, OK.</p>
<p>Another vote for Dartmouth!</p>
<p>Skidmore's Saratoga Springs is a pretty good choice, too.</p>
<p>Many college kids like Northampton, Amherst,MA and Burlington, VT as well.</p>
<ol>
<li>Madison, WI</li>
<li>Charlottesville, VA</li>
<li>Ashville, NC</li>
<li>Heidelberg, Germany</li>
<li>Eugene, OR</li>
</ol>
<p>Northampton is awesome.
Although it gets a bad rep, New Haven is very charming (and completely safe in the Yale vicinity).
Providence (Brown)
Ithaca, NY</p>
<p>Cornell has what you're looking for. The area just south of campus is all catered to students, and downtown Ithaca is a giant block of coffeehouses, cute stores, and restaurants.</p>
<p>Providence, Rhode Island is an amazing college town, Montreal is a huge city but at the same time I found it had a very college-y feel</p>
<p>i'll second towerpumpkin on Cornell. The thing I like best about the area, though, are the wineries and vineyards. </p>
<p>the syracuse area around the university is pretty good as well though I tend to prefer the suberbs for good restaurants.</p>
<p>Athens,GA is a great college town. Especially downtown which is right off of campus. There are ALOT of bars though.</p>
<p>Cornell (Ithaca)
Northwestern (Evanston, it's a suburb of Chicago but actually kind of feels like its own little town)
Wake Forest has something like this (Reynolda Village), but it's pretty small</p>
<p>I second Athens, GA. I played a soccer tournament there one time, during Homecoming and you could tell it was an awesome town. There's a lot of cool stuff to do there.</p>
<p>Athens, OH.... and Ithica, NY(which is a great town b/c the ithica college kids rock... not the cornell kids)</p>
<p>Auburn, AL is a great college town. "Downtown" does have bars (only about 3 main ones though), two bookstores, Toomer's Drugs home of the famous Toomer's Lemonade, several little boutiques (and a Gap), Cambridge Coffee (good for studying), restaurants (Quizno's, Cheng-du chinese, cheeburger cheeburger, etc), a bank/ATM and some offices. It also has the BEST ice cream place ever, called Coldstone. The Mall is a couple miles away, about a 10 minute or less drive, along with the movie theater.</p>
<p>I second Providence, RI as being a great college town. The area surrounding Georgetown in D.C. is also very nice. I may be biased but I think UCLA's surrounding area, Westwood Village, is also a wonderful college town.</p>
<p>annapolis, maryland for st john's college</p>
<p>Ithaca is a terrible college town. Terrible on the weekends.</p>