Special offer

Mobile, Alabama makes top 50 list for best places to 'live and play'

By
Real Estate Agent with RE/MAX of Orange Beach

Mobile makes top 50 list for best places to 'live and play'

Only Alabama location selected joins likes of Seattle and San Francisco Tuesday, August 12, 2008 By KAIJA WILKINSONBusiness Reporter

Mobile joins the likes of Seattle, San Francisco and Chattanooga, Tenn., in the September issue of National Geographic Adventure magazine as one of the "50 next great towns" in which to live and play.

Magazine editors said their annual choices "aren't just on prime relocation spots now, but smart choices for the future."

National Geographic asked the Mobile Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau for its recommendation of interesting, offbeat local destinations, according to bureau President Leon Maisel. Editors made their choices after visiting the various locales.

In Mobile, tours of the local river delta system were a major draw, Maisel said.

The magazine's September issue features Australian transplant Kristian Aboud, who owns Five Rivers Delta Safaris, a tour boat business that operates out of the state-owned Five Rivers Delta Center on the Causeway between Mobile and the Eastern Shore.

The 30-year-old entrepreneur, also co-owner of the Mobile wine shop Taste!, said he initially came to Mobile because of his work as a wine distributor, but the area's natural beauty and "rugby scene" eventually led him to make Mobile home.

For the last four years, he's been dividing his time between Mobile and Monterey, Calif., where his Navy wife is stationed. Aboud said returning to Mobile is "like coming home," and its unique beauty rivals that of Monterey or any other destination.

His safari business, plus a café at Five Rivers that will open in a couple of weeks, should benefit from the National Geographic Adventure article. Aboud hopes not only for new residents to the area, but more visitors.

"We've been steady through the summer, and we're looking for a nice little boon in the fall," he said. "Definitely, people who are outdoors-related are going to see it."

Mobile was the only Alabama site among the magazine's 50 choices. Most of the areas were in the western part of the United States.

Tourist spending is big business in Mobile, according to the Convention & Visitors Bureau, which put 2007 tourism spending at $888.6 million in Mobile, which welcomed an estimated 2.6 million visitors.

Other Mobile highlights in the top-50 list included the outdoor patio at Café 615 on Dauphin Street and the Kate Shepard House bed and breakfast.

B&B co-owner Wendy James said mentions like the one in National Geographic are invaluable to boosting business, especially during slower summer months when her business typically is only half full.

The Mobile area has been in the pages of other National Geographic publications, including an article earlier this year in National Geographic Traveler that focused on the Eastern Shore on Mobile Bay.

Comments (0)