<p>How lively is the city of amherst?
What is the town like?
Is there an abundance of coffee shops and other things to do?
Or is it a dead town with pretty much only what is on the campus?</p>
<p>I’m not a student there (yet…crossing my fingers!), but I’ve visited several times. My impression when I visited was that it’s not roaring by any means - this isn’t Boston - but it’s really cute. It had several cute coffee shops and a some good restaurants - I’ve eaten in three of them and they were all great - a bookstore, etc. The houses are cute. On the one end you have UMass Amherst, and on the other is Amherst college, so there are a decent amount of college students.</p>
<p>One of the things that really separated Amherst from some of the other schools I looked at (Williams, Middlebury) is the actual town of Amherst. It’s no metropolis, but I’m not really sure anyone wants to change that.</p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>
<p>My D will be going to MoHo, so I have visited the area a few times. Amherst seems to have more restaurants, bars, and eateries than people. You can get just about any type of food there. Other than that, there’s not much more in the town of Amherst. Northampton (a free bus ride away) has more and is bigger. There are lots of fast food places and stores on Route 9 between Amherst and Northampton, and I believe the free bus stops at the biggest of the strip malls (Wallmart anyone?).</p>