Most food-focused: Bend, Oregon

A reinvented logging town populated by skateboarding students, Cali refugees, and athletes-in-training (all of whom care deeply about what they eat and where it comes from—the closer, the better), Bend is seeing a post-downturn recovery spurred by locavore dining and nouveau food carts.

Your day should start with a farm-fresh scramble from Chow. Lunch favorites are Jackson’s Corner, for cut-above-average sandwiches; and Spork, a cart that serves green Thai curry and tacos. When the dinner bell sounds, great choices are Zydeco, for New Orleans–tinged flavors; 900 Wall, whose ordinary-seeming pasta/pizza/steak menu belies a real talent; and Joolz, for a uniquely Oregonian take on Lebanese food (like Hummus on the Range: seared elk meat with your hummus and pita).

Slopes: Just 22 miles west, rising out of the Deschutes National Forest, is solitary Mt. Bachelor (from $50). It’s a challenging ski area: 3,683 acres of exhilarating, windswept runs with a 3,365-foot vertical drop.

Sleeps: The new, boutiquey Oxford Hotel (from $179) puts you in the heart of downtown’s buzzy small-plates scene—and one of the stars is the hotel’s own 10 Below restaurant.

Info: 17 miles from Redmond Municipal Airport; bendchamber.org

More:  Find the best in Bend