Best Lake Towns in America

Lake Placid, NY

Twice an Olympic host (1932 and 1980, home to the 'Miracle on Ice'), Lake Placid turned a tiny Adirondack village into a permanent winter-sports legend. The lake itself is almost secondary to the mountains ringing it, but that combination of alpine drama and small-town Main Stree

Scenic Beauty: 9.5/10Median Home Price: $420,000Main Lake: Lake Placid / Mirror LakePopulation: 2,300

added by IJR

Coeur d'Alene, ID

Coeur d'Alene went from a 19th-century mining and timber outpost to one of the Pacific Northwest's glossiest resort towns, anchored by a lake National Geographic once called one of the five most beautiful in the world. The floating golf green at the Coeur d'Alene Resort is the si

Scenic Beauty: 9.3/10Median Home Price: $520,000Main Lake: Lake Coeur d'AlenePopulation: 56,000

added by IJR

Lake Geneva, WI

Chicago's Gilded Age millionaires built their summer mansions here in the late 1800s, and the lakefront 'Millionaire's Row' walking path still lets you gawk at that legacy for free. It remains the quintessential Midwest lake escape, an easy weekend drive from three major metros.

Scenic Beauty: 8.5/10Median Home Price: $480,000Main Lake: Geneva LakePopulation: 7,800

added by IJR

Traverse City, MI

Perched on Grand Traverse Bay off Lake Michigan, this town parlayed cherry orchards and sand dunes into a full-blown food-and-wine destination without losing its beach-town soul. The nearby Sleeping Bear Dunes give it a scenic edge almost no other lake town on this list can match

Scenic Beauty: 9/10Median Home Price: $410,000Main Lake: Grand Traverse Bay, Lake MichiganPopulation: 15,600

added by IJR

South Lake Tahoe, CA

Straddling the California-Nevada line, Tahoe is the rare lake town that's also a bona fide four-season resort, with ski runs dropping almost into the impossibly blue water. Mark Twain called Tahoe's clarity 'the fairest picture the whole earth affords,' and a century and a half l

Scenic Beauty: 9.7/10Median Home Price: $650,000Main Lake: Lake TahoePopulation: 21,000

added by IJR

Put-in-Bay, OH

This South Bass Island party town on Lake Erie is where Commodore Perry's 1813 naval victory is memorialized by a 352-foot Doric column, but most visitors know it for golf carts, tiki bars, and ferry-only access. It's proof a lake town doesn't need mountains to become a legend, j

Scenic Beauty: 7/10Median Home Price: $340,000Main Lake: Lake EriePopulation: 140

added by IJR

Bayfield, WI

Gateway to the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior, Bayfield swapped its fishing-and-logging past for kayaking, sea caves, and one of the most dramatic Great Lakes shorelines in the country. Its brutal winters keep it from ever overdeveloping, which locals consider a feature, not a

Scenic Beauty: 9/10Median Home Price: $300,000Main Lake: Lake SuperiorPopulation: 500

added by IJR

Chelan, WA

A 55-mile glacial fjord-lake in the Cascades, Lake Chelan gave rise to a town that blends desert-dry summers with alpine scenery and a booming wine industry. Stehekin, reachable only by boat or float plane at the lake's far end, gives Chelan a genuine frontier mystique few lake t

Scenic Beauty: 9.2/10Median Home Price: $480,000Main Lake: Lake ChelanPopulation: 4,300

added by IJR

Hot Springs, AR

Best known for its historic bathhouse row, Hot Springs also sits on Lake Hamilton and Lake Ouachita, giving it a rare double identity as both spa town and boating capital. Al Capone reportedly vacationed here in the 1930s, cementing its reputation as a low-key playground with a c

Scenic Beauty: 7.5/10Median Home Price: $230,000Main Lake: Lake HamiltonPopulation: 38,000

added by IJR

Wolfeboro, NH

Billed as 'the oldest summer resort in America,' Wolfeboro has been welcoming vacationers to Lake Winnipesaukee since the 1760s, and the pace still feels genteel rather than commercial. Mitt Romney's lakeside estate here made national headlines, but the real star is the lake's 24

Scenic Beauty: 8.3/10Median Home Price: $530,000Main Lake: Lake WinnipesaukeePopulation: 6,300

added by IJR

Big Bear Lake, CA

Two hours from Los Angeles, Big Bear turns a man-made reservoir into a mountain escape that somehow supports both skiing and paddleboarding in the same calendar year. It's the SoCal answer to Tahoe: smaller, closer, and just as capable of packing weekend traffic bumper to bumper

Scenic Beauty: 8.2/10Median Home Price: $420,000Main Lake: Big Bear LakePopulation: 5,000

added by IJR

Osage Beach, MO

Lake of the Ozarks was created in 1931 by damming the Osage River, and Osage Beach grew into the brash, party-boat, mini-golf capital that resulted. It's less about scenery and more about the 1,150 miles of shoreline packed with docks, bars, and Bagnell Dam Strip nightlife.

Scenic Beauty: 6.5/10Median Home Price: $290,000Main Lake: Lake of the OzarksPopulation: 5,400

added by IJR

Sandpoint, ID

Once a quiet timber town, Sandpoint got a national jolt when Outside magazine and others started naming it one of the best small towns in America, thanks to Lake Pend Oreille's depth (over 1,100 feet, deep enough the Navy tests submarines there) and the Schweitzer ski resort next

Scenic Beauty: 9/10Median Home Price: $460,000Main Lake: Lake Pend OreillePopulation: 9,000

added by IJR

Skaneateles, NY

The cleanest of the Finger Lakes gave its name to a town so pristine that Skaneateles Lake still supplies Syracuse's drinking water without a filtration plant. Its 19th-century downtown of white church steeples and lake-view porches feels frozen in a New England postcard, minus t

Scenic Beauty: 8.7/10Median Home Price: $390,000Main Lake: Skaneateles LakePopulation: 2,400

added by IJR

Horseshoe Bay, TX

Built from scratch in the 1970s around Lake LBJ in the Texas Hill Country, Horseshoe Bay is a planned resort town of golf courses and marinas rather than an organic lake village. It represents the Sun Belt model of lake living: engineered, upscale, and increasingly popular with r

Scenic Beauty: 7.5/10Median Home Price: $650,000Main Lake: Lake LBJPopulation: 8,300

added by IJR

Excelsior, MN

On the shores of Lake Minnetonka just outside Minneapolis, Excelsior turned a 19th-century steamboat-and-amusement-park past (its Excelsior Amusement Park ran until 1973) into a boutique downtown that Twin Cities residents treat as their weekend lake fix. Proximity to a major met

Scenic Beauty: 7.8/10Median Home Price: $550,000Main Lake: Lake MinnetonkaPopulation: 2,400

added by IJR

Lake George, NY

Thomas Jefferson called it 'the most beautiful water I ever saw,' and the 32-mile lake in the southern Adirondacks has been a tourist draw since the 1800s, complete with steamboat cruises still running today. Its blend of old-money estates and honky-tonk arcade strip gives it a s

Scenic Beauty: 8.8/10Median Home Price: $350,000Main Lake: Lake GeorgePopulation: 3,300

added by IJR