San Ramon, Costa Rica is a small village being developed with several retirement communities popular with American expatriates. The town is about a 45 minute drive from great beaches. The town is an area with sweeping views of the mountains and the coast. The climate is pleasant year round. The city lies at an elevation of 1,057 meters above sea level…...

Apalachicola is a small town of a few thousand people on the Gulf Coast of Florida, about an hour south of Tallahassee.  This old and wealthy fishing town has a long history due to its location on the rich fishing and oystering areas of the Gulf Coast.  Apalachicola has a very interesting downtown with many restored buildings reminiscent of the…...

Seaside is a planned, mixed generation community in Florida's Panhandle,midway between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City.  It is one of the first examples of the New Urbanism style of architecture, a retrospective treatment in which houses have front porches and people are encouraged to walk rather than drive their cars. Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk were the architects. Driveways…...

One of America's most famous college towns is Ann Arbor, Michigan (population 123,000). It is home to the University of Michigan, whose 40,000 students dominate the town (in a nice way) culturally, economically, and demographically. The city has strict zoning regulations which make life difficult for developers but result in an extremely pleasant small town environment. Many alumni and midwesterners…...