The Best Hippie Towns in All Six New England States

A hippie is defined by Britannica as a "member, during the 1960s and 1970s, of a counterculture movement that rejected the mores of mainstream American life."

Britannica says, "Hippies were largely a white, middle-class group of teenagers and twentysomethings who belonged to what demographers call the baby-boom generation."

Someone should alert Britannica that the hippies are back with Generation Z, and they are here in New England.

Thrillist.com is out with a list of "The Most Hippie Town In All 50 States." That means hippies are flourishing all over New England, and we're about to tell you where to save you the trouble of looking for them.

Let's start in Massachusetts. Thrillist.com says Northampton is the best hippie town in the Bay State. The site says, "This free-spirited town sits in the Pioneer Valley, an epicenter of hippie get-away-from-it-all mentality in the state."

Adam Lapetina writes Northampton is "known for art and music festivals, a high percentage of leftover graduates from such nearby weirdo sanctuaries as Hampshire, Amherst, and Smith Colleges, and some of the most pronounced progressive/countercultural politics in America."

The best hippie town in Rhode Island is Charlestown. MM writes, "Any town that houses something called The Fantastic Umbrella Factory is going to top a list of cities no matter what state it's in."

Connecticut's best hippie city is New Haven. MM says, "Connecticut is known to New Yorkers as the WASPy, sweater-clad suburb, and to the rest of America as the cradle of the WWE. But MM says New Haven is "home to Yale University and its hometown, which has a hippie culture like nowhere else in the state."

Thrillist.com says Unity is Maine's most hippie town, Kenne is New Hampshire's, and to no one's surprise, the best hippie town in Vermont is Burlington.

So there you have it. Perhaps the list of the best of the country's hippie towns will assist some of you in your vacation planning this summer.

Peace out!