Should We Keep Them a Secret?

I get a lot of work-related hate mail, which is interesting considering I have a relatively benign job. I’m not dealing in blood diamonds. I’m not a Pharma Bro. I write articles about cool places to go and fun things to do. Occasionally, I write about mountain towns for this magazine— mountain towns you can atually afford and the best mountain bike towns, to name a few. That’s when I start hearing from you in emails and social media messages, questioning my purpose on this planet and asking me to please not write about your towns.

I’m exaggerating of course. Commenters never say “please.” Most get pretty salty. And on a certain level, I understand the frustration. I’ve lived in Asheville, North Carolina, a coveted mountain town, for more than 20 years now. It’s one of those media darlings that’s perpetually on “best places to live” lists from a variety of magazines beyond this one. Home prices have soared since I moved here. Trails have become more crowded. To score a campsite in the nearby national forest or at my wife’s favorite restaurant a miracle of timing is needed.

Crowds suck. Rising housing prices suck even more. Feeling like the quiet adventure town you fell in love with is changing can be heartbreaking. Sometimes, I’ll walk around my town and wonder where all of the bachelorette parties came from, and why they’re at my favorite backcountry swimming hole.

But then I take a step back and admit that I don’t have any right to keep this wonderful town or the outdoor adventures outside of this town to myself. And neither do you.

So you’re saying the place you live in is awesome—it has a vibrant arts scene, great restaurants, access to trails right from downtown, and a population that prioritizes healthy living and a work/life balance. And you don’t want to share that with anyone else?

I love writing about mountain towns and adventure towns because living in one of these towns changed my life almost three decades ago.

A Collective Desire to Be in the Outdoors

I grew up in a small town north of Atlanta during a time when that sleepy hamlet was transitioning from farms to suburbs. It was unexceptional in every way possible. Pastures became loops of houses. Then a mall. Then rows of chain restaurants. There was very little public land. My parents didn’t really choose to live there. They moved there in the ’70s because that’s where my dad got a job. That’s why everyone lived in that town. Until I moved to Boulder, Colorado, for graduate school at the age of 23, I assumed nobody really chose where they lived. For better or worse, they just bought or rented a house close to their work. But Boulder was different. People chose to live there not because of the jobs, but because of a desire to be in the outdoors.

At that time, when I met someone at a party, and they asked that ubiquitous small talk question, “So, what do you do?” I realized they weren’t inquiring about my job. They were asking whether I skied or snowboarded. They wanted to know if I climbed or mountain biked. It was the first place I lived where the emphasis was on play, not work. This is the magic of mountain towns—the priorities in these burgs are askew in all the right ways–and it was absolutely eye-opening for me.

I left Boulder after graduate school for Southern California, not because I got a job, but because I wanted to learn how to surf. I left the beach for the South because I wanted an adventure town with a slower pace and a more diverse socio-economic population. My wife and I were looking for a specific kind of place to settle down in to raise our family. We found it all in Asheville, North Carolina.

We got married here, carved out careers here, bought a house, and we’re raising kids here.

There’s a good chance I “discovered” the town I now call home through an article written in this magazine more than two decades ago. Was it better before everyone else discovered it? It was certainly less crowded. But was it better? It doesn’t matter. Because what right do I have to keep this wonderful place to myself? What right do you have to keep your adventure haven to yourself?

I have a friend who’s moving to my mountain town this month. I have to help him schlep his furniture into his new rental next week. He’s 50 years old and has lived in the same town we grew up in his entire life—that farming town that is now just an extension of Atlanta. He wants a more active lifestyle. He wants his kids to be able to hike and bike and find swimming holes on weekends. He wants to ride his bike on Wednesday nights with a group of guys his own age and go camping on a whim 20 minutes from his house.

He’s moving to this mountain town for the exact same reasons I moved to this mountain town. He’s just doing it 20 years later. Does he not have a right to seek out the very same lifestyle that I cherish?

Home prices are definitely rising in these mountain towns, and sometimes people come to visit and act like assholes. I don’t like either of those things. I don’t want my neighbors to be priced out of their homes. I don’t want some jerk leaving trash on my favorite trails.

But trying to keep your town a secret from the world isn’t sustainable. It’s also not a healthy way to approach the good fortune you’ve been dealt. If you’re worried about being priced out of your town, that’s a legitimate concern. I can’t control the real estate prices where you live anymore than I can control the real estate prices in my own town. All I can do is vote for elected officials that make affordable housing a priority. I suggest you do the same.

Are There Solutions to the Mountain Town Housing Crisis?

Some towns and states are experimenting with some interesting measures to address these issues.

A bill being debated in Florida would redirect 100% of the state’s Tourist Development Tax revenue away from promoting tourism and towards lower state property tax. A lodging tax in Colorado passed in 2022 allows counties to fund housing and child care for workers in certain industries. In Breckenridge, they’re using a combination of public funds from lodging taxes and private investment to add almost 1000 units of workforce housing. In Crested Butte, a 2.9% excise tax was placed on short term rentals for an affordable housing fund. Leadville offers down payment assistance for locals. Big Sky has a resort tax on luxury goods and services that funds infrastructure and affordable housing development. The town also offers cash incentives to property owners who rent to local workers. Certain towns have placed caps and bans on short term rentals.

None of these solutions are perfect; they aren’t comprehensive enough. Affordable housing is still an issue in the majority of towns that have access to world-class adventure. Crowded trailheads and packed parks is an ongoing issue.

It’s also important to note that some mountain towns need adventure tourism and a fresh influx of full-time residents as a new economic springboard. Most of the small towns I detailed in my most recent affordable mountain towns article are former mining hubs that had been struggling to find an economic foothold beyond the extraction of resources.

Take West Virginia. The “Mountain State”  is one of the most beautiful in the country with some of the best adventures to be found east of the Rockies. Historically, West Virginia’s economy has been centered on mining and logging. It also has a “brain drain” issue, where young residents flee after high school and college to find work elsewhere. As the logging and mining industries have withered, West Virginia has leaned hard on adventure tourism as an economic driver, and they’re addressing the “brain drain” issue by paying remote workers up to $12,000 to move to one of their towns via the Ascend West Virginia program.

I wish every visitor took three pieces of trash with them when they hiked a trail. I wish we all practiced Leave No Trace principles. I wish the residents in the town you live in voted in elected officials who prioritize sustainable growth and affordable housing. I really do. I wish every mountain town in America had smart strategies to limit second home ownership, and avenues in place that allowed care providers, teachers, and hospitality workers to purchase their first homes.

But the fact that more Americans are trying to move to these mountain towns and want to explore our trails is a good problem. It means there’s a shift in their priorities. Our trailheads are crowded because more people love getting outside. Our mountain towns are growing because more people want this way of life.

I agree we need to protect these places for locals and visitors alike. But I don’t think we should keep them a secret.

Graham Averill is Outside magazine’s national parks columnist. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina and tries not to get upset when there is no parking at the trailhead for his favorite mountain bike trails.