Amherst is a college town in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, set among farms and forested hills along the Connecticut River. Three colleges — the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, and Hampshire College — give it an intellectual energy that punches well above its small-town size, and the student population keeps the restaurants, bookshops, and coffee houses busy year-round.
It is also Emily Dickinson's town. The poet was born here in 1830, spent nearly her entire life here, and is buried in West Cemetery a short walk from the town center. The Emily Dickinson Museum, in her family home on Main Street, draws visitors from around the world who come to see the bedroom where she wrote most of her nearly 1,800 poems. The town takes Dickinson seriously — there are plaques, readings, and an annual festival in her honor.
Beyond the literary pilgrimage, Amherst rewards walkers and cyclists. The Norwottuck Rail Trail connects the town to Northampton along a flat, paved path through meadows and across the Connecticut River. The surrounding countryside is patchwork farmland; in autumn the foliage is extraordinary. A day trip from Boston is very doable — about two hours on the bus — and the Five College Consortium means there is always a lecture, a film screening, or an art opening happening somewhere in the area.