We all have those favorite small towns that we badger our friends to visit. You know, the out of the way villages and hamlets with great bookstores, restaurants, architecture and shops. Every year Budget Travel magazine celebrates those bright spots with the “Coolest Small Towns in America” competition. Readers nominate their favorite towns with a population of fewer than 10,000, this year nearly half a million voted, and editors choose the top ten. (full disclosure: we nominated our adopted hometown of Newtown & actively campaigned for votes)

The big winner this year is Lewisburg, West Virginia (pop. 3,830). No disrespect to Lewisburg, but we were dead chuffed by the towns that came in at numbers 6, 7 and 8. Town #6, Phoenicia, NY (pop. 309) is a slightly scruffy West Catskills mountain hamlet that’s home to our favorite pancake house in the nation, Sweet Sue’s Restaurant. And #8 this year is Cedar Key, Florida (pop. 896), which is an oldfashioned fishing village that has somehow evaded the developers onslaught.

But the big winner (from our perspective) was #7, Newtown, Pennsylvania, our little borough. Just 30 minutes from Philadelphia and 90 minutes from NYC, historic Newtown is the best of both world’s. The self-contained village of 2,384 souls ( and uncounted ghosts ) was founded by none other than William Penn himself in 1682. He even paid fair market value to the local Indians. Newtown is home to the world’s oldest continually operating movie house, a Revolutionary War battle site and one of America’s oldest public libraries. It has historic inns, colonial era homes and churchs, and blocks of classy Victorian houses. But we also have one of PA’s busiest Starbucks and two Gaps.