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Carbondale makes Outside’s top 10

John Colson
Post Independent Staff
Kelley Cox Post Independent
Staff Photo |

CARBONDALE — This town of roughly 6,300 souls is once again on a top-10 list of great places to be, this one on the website, Outsideonline.com.

The online version of Outside Magazine is conducting its annual poll of readers to learn which of 10 cities and towns is their “favorite active town.”

The list of possibilities includes San Diego, Calif.; Boston, Mass.: Greenville, S.C.; Bozeman, Mont.; Park City, Utah; Waitsfield, Vt.; Honolulu, Hawaii; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Spokane, Wash.; and Carbondale.



Photos from the other contestant communities show everything from sparkling oceanfront vistas to tree-lined bike paths and resplendent fall colors in the mountains.

Carbondale’s photo is of a mountain bicyclist perched atop Mushroom Rock in the Red Hill Recreation Area, with Mount Sopris looking large in the background.



“Isn’t that exciting?” asked Andrea Stewart, director of the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce, on Thursday.

She said she had learned about the poll a week earlier, but was sworn to secrecy by the magazine’s editors.

Given the list of possible winners, Stewart said, “We’re just excited to be on the map. With all the wonderful events we have in Carbondale, the word is getting around. People are finding us.”

She said Carbondale’s growing notoriety as a place to have fun is at least partly due to the success of last year’s Ride The Rockies bike tour, which stopped over in Carbondale and named this town the second-best place the tour visited in 2012.

“We know how to party,” Stewart said with a laugh, recalling the most recent time Carbondale made this kind of national list, in 2008, when the National Geographic Adventure Magazine gave the town 12th place in its list of “50 Next Great Places to Live and Play.”

In general, however, Stewart said the credit for Carbondale’s rapidly spreading reputation for fun is due to the hard work of the town’s Tourism Council, which was created in 2003 and is funded by a special 2 percent lodging tax. The council’s task, she said, is to spread the word about how wonderful Carbondale is, adding that the group seems to be getting the job done.

Stewart said the chamber is urging locals to vote for Carbondale on the magazine’s website (outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/best-towns-2013). Links to the poll are provided on the Chamber’s website (carbondale.com) and Facebook page (Facebook.com/Carbondale.)

jcolson@postindependent.com


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