Evanston, Illinois
When you live next door to the City of Big Shoulders, it helps to have something going on in your town.

Evanston has enough going for it to avoid being written off as just a Chicago suburb, even though it hugs the same lakeshore 15 miles north of the Loop. With a progressive, racially diverse, and highly educated populace, it’s always had admirers, but in recent years the city’s become downright hot.

Evanston has 86 parks and six Lake Michigan beaches—more than almost any Chicago-area community its size. Lighthouse Beach, with its historic beacon, is a local favorite, as is Dog Beach, where canines can romp off leash. As a pleasantly strenuous alter­native to the fast but ho-hum Purple Line on the “L,” a bike and foot path extends from Northwestern Univer­sity’s campus on the lake, all the way into Chicago. Kayakers who prefer calmer, more intimate surroundings than Lake Michigan can paddle the Sanitary Canal, also more appealingly known as the North Shore Channel, a branch of the Chicago River system. Yes, it really is sanitary—so much so that it’s not uncommon to surprise a great blue heron around the next bend.

Arts events abound, headed by the annual Fountain Square Arts Festival, featuring open-air sales and displays of paintings, glassware, jewelry, and pottery. South Evanston has an urban feel—funky, locally owned shops and galleries line the blocks along Dempster Street, and the rejuvenated downtown has movie theaters, a flourishing public library, bookstores, and nearly 100 restaurants. One stroll past the lake and the fabulous historic houses and you’ll agree that folks in Evanston have plenty of reasons to stay home. If the White Sox and the Cubs ever move north to this burb, there’s a good chance no one will ever leave.

what the locals know
Peg Boggs has lived in Evanston for 30 years, and has never found a quieter, more secluded corner than Northwestern University’s Shakespeare Garden. Planted nearly a century ago by the Garden Club of Evanston, the greens contain more than 50 types of flowers, trees, shrubs, and herbs mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays. “It’s hidden behind tall hedges near the Howes Memorial Chapel,” says Peg, “a wonderful, private place for quiet contemplation.”

Population: 74,360
Median Home Price: $369,900
For More Info: cityofevanston.org

Santa Barbara, California
The Franciscans liked Santa Barbara so much, they stayed.

Of all the missions established along California’s El Camino Real during Spanish colonial days, only Mission Santa Barbara has been run by the Franciscan fathers since its founding. The city (sometimes called the American Riviera), has grown a good deal more worldly since 1786, with a campus of the University of California, an international film festival, and an eclectic group of residents ranging from artsy writers, renowned academics, Hollywood refugees—even migrating gray whales.

In a nod to the sea, Santa Barbara still manages to float a modest fishing fleet, which heads out of port for everything from salmon to sea urchins. Nostalgia for fresh West Coast seafood just might have been part of the draw for the late Julia Child, a California native who retired to this coast after spending most of her life on New England’s chillier shores.

The setting is incomparable. The four northernmost portions of the Channel Islands National Park dot the Pacific, drawing divers, snorkelers, sea kayakers, and visitors who come to view spring wildflowers and colonies of elephant seals. The Santa Ynez Mountains tower in the distance, and the semiwild Parma Park offers miles of unmarked trails through rugged foothills. (A more formal counterpart is the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, hosting 1,000 native California plant species.) A short drive up the coast, the beaches of Goleta and the unlikely Danish community of Solvang await.

Santa Barbara Harbor is home to about 1,000 pleasure and commercial craft, and the oldest working wooden wharf in the state. Another treasure, perhaps a surprise for anyone who maintains that California’s vineyards exist only in Napa and Sonoma counties, is Santa Barbara County’s wine region, which ranges to the northwest. More than 21,000 acres are planted in vines, and the county is home to some 100 wineries. (You’ve probably seen a few of them, in circumstances whimsically bittersweet: The movie Sideways was filmed here.)

what the locals know
Writer, editor, and longtime Santa Barbara resident Joan Tapper likes to introduce newcomers to Casa del Herrero, on East Valley Road. “It was the home of George Fox Steedman, who commissioned noted architect George Washington Smith to re-create an Andalusian farmhouse,” says Joan. “The home and gardens—and Steedman’s fascinating workshop—are basically unchanged since the place was completed in 1925. Touring it is a treat.”

Population: 90,473
Median Home Price: $1 million
For More Info: santabarbaraca.com