Littleton is the commercial heart of New Hampshire's North Country, a small city of four thousand people that manages to feel genuinely alive. It sits where I-93 meets US-302 at the edge of the White Mountains, close enough to Franconia Notch that the peaks form a constant backdrop, far enough from the resort towns to keep its own character.
Main Street is the centrepiece — a long run of well-preserved Victorian brick buildings housing an improbable density of independent shops, bookstores, galleries, and good places to eat. The street runs parallel to the Ammonoosuc River, and a footbridge at its lower end leads to a paved riverside path that stretches along the water. This is one of the finest small-town main streets in New England, and unlike many preserved main streets it still serves locals as much as visitors.
The town was the birthplace of Eleanor H. Porter, who in 1913 published Pollyanna and gave the English language one of its most enduring adjectives. A bronze statue of the eternally optimistic Pollyanna stands on Main Street with arms outstretched. The Littleton Grist Mill, operating since the 19th century, still stone-grinds flour on the river — you can watch it work and buy the flour to take home.
Beyond town, Franconia Notch State Park is 12 miles south: the Flume Gorge, Echo Lake, and the Cannon Mountain aerial tramway are all within easy reach. Sugar Hill, a hilltop village 10 miles away, erupts with lupine blooms in June. Bretton Woods and the Mount Washington Hotel, site of the 1944 conference that shaped the post-war world economy, are 30 miles east. Littleton makes an excellent base for all of it.