Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

A village with no street addresses, parking meters or streetlights, which tells you most of what you need to know about the pace. Shops, galleries, restaurants and tasting rooms all sit within about a square mile, so once the car is parked you can stay on foot all weekend. Hugh Comstock's storybook cottages from the 1920s, 21 of them still standing, make an easy wander between lunch and an evening on the white sand of Carmel Beach, where the sunset is the free main event. Rooms and dinners are not cheap, but the best parts of the visit cost nothing.