Taos

Taos, in north-central New Mexico, sits between the Rio Grande Gorge and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and has drawn artists and writers since Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips established the first artist colony here in 1898 — later attracting Georgia O'Keeffe, D.H. Lawrence, and Dennis Hopper. The adjacent Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been continuously inhabited for roughly a millennium and gives the town its name. A real café and restaurant scene rounds out a small town with an outsized cultural footprint.

• Population5,740
• Nearest water1.0 km
• Nearest mountain4.0 km
• UNESCO within 50 km1