TRAVERSE CITY -- Traverse City is stacking up the superlatives.
National Geographic Adventure named the city one of "The 50 Next Great Adventure Towns" in its September issue. The Cherry Capital made the list along with Bardstown, Ky., Rapid City, S.D., Grand Marais, Minn., Carbondale, Colo., and dozens of other towns spread across the United States. The magazine's cover story highlights these places as prime spots to "live and play."
Towns selected were "innovative" and boasted not only lots of action but also a plan for the future, said magazine publicist Ethan Fried.
The city also was recently named one of the "Great Places You've Never Heard Of" by Mother Earth News.
Traverse City garnered a quick blurb under the category "weekend retreat" in the National Geographic Adventure article. The magazine noted the nearby Sleeping Bear Dunes and singled out the experience of "soaring alongside the 400-foot sand swells" thanks to Broneah Kiteboarding.
The Traverse City-based company is run by brothers Matt and Keegan Myers and gets its name from a combination of the words "brother" and "Neahtawanta," after the spot on Old Mission Peninsula where they grew up. Kiteboarding is an activity similar to wakeboarding except that it is powered by wind. Matt Myers understands both the "live" and the "play" explored in the magazine story.
"We're definitely a strong balance between business and lifestyle. We do not let money guide our life. We first make sure we are living the way we want to live, and I think that's the key," he said.
This is the fourth annual list assembled by National Geographic Adventure, Fried said. The magazine was expected to hit newsstands in mid-August.
"... Traverse City is the best place you could ever live. I guess because it's an unknown destination, and... people are not aware of the resources that we have up here, and we've taken the time to explore these hidden areas off of M-22 and have found that it gets no better," said Matt Myers.
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