Best Places to Live

Eight of the best sites for finding the best places to live, including best places to raise a family, to work, to retire, for outdoor activities, etc. Know of another site that should be on this list? Leave your suggestion at the bottom of this page.

1. Sperling’s Best Places - When you read articles about the best places to live, they often use data from this company that crunches the numbers on cost of living, schools, crime, climate, home values and other criteria to rank top cities. Take their “Find Your Best Place” quiz to see which place is best for you, or research a particular place in the U.S. (www.bestplaces.net)

2. Money Magazine Best Places to Live 2007 - Listen to them and you’ll be packing your bags for Middleton, Wisconsin. If that doesn’t suit you, they offer a list of 100 cities in America that they think are among the best, as well as lists of best places for singles, for affordable homes, best big cities and more. You can also see the criteria for selection and how your town stacks up to the winners. (money.cnn.com)

3. 50 Best Places to Live and Play 2007 - National Geographic Adventure offers this list of best places for those seeking adventure outdoors and in, with Las Vegas taking the top spot. See the big list as well as smaller lists broken down by city size, proximity to wilderness, mountains, water, more. (www.nationalgeographic.com)

4. Best Places to Retire 2006 - Walla Walla, Washington took the top spot in this ranking of best places to live for retirees. (money.cnn.com)

5. Forbes Best Cities for Singles 2007 - San Francisco tops the list of best places for single people to live, regardless of whether or not you’re looking to meet women or meet men or just hang out. (www.forbes.com)

6. Find Utopia - Offers lists of the best big, medium and small size USA cities, and offers thoughts on how to choose the best place for you. Also links to many resources on best place lists for certain interests. (www.findutopia.com)

7. Best Cities for Artists - With many big cities getting too expensive and artists having an easier time marketing their work online, where are the best places for artists to live these days? This discussion offers many ideas. (www.cyburbia.org)

8. Find Your Spot - Take their quiz to find out the best place in the United States for you based on your preferences for city size, weather, culture and other factors. Annoying at the end when they try to get a lot of personal information from you before they’ll let you see your top places. (www.findyourspot.com)

other tags: sperlings, sperling