Asheville
What a hidden little treasure this town is: small, charming, green, full of hippies and tree huggers and yogis like myself! In the mountains of North Carolina yet it might as well be the Portland of the East Coast. It's been called exactly that. I spent a month here to do my yoga teacher training at the premier yoga center of the Southeast - the Asheville Yoga Center. I loved it and the people in my training cohort. I could live in the Dobra Tea House - it's straight out of the Himalayas and you feel it. You can buy great crystals here too, get all your food locally grown and the products made there, like the kombucha, are dynamite. Asheville was deemed the best small outdoor town of the year a few years ago by Outside magazine if I remember correctly. That is lovely of course, just that we all hope it's not invaded and overcrowded. It's such a fascinating place where you can meet people of all types and their stories do not disappoint. You meet the transplants who went there in the early 1960s and every year thereafter. It's not far from Atlanta so easy to get to also. The music festivals are going on constantly. In short, there's always something to do there, great forests and national parks to hike, trails to ride - it's a green heaven for outdoor lovers and mountain junkies.