From Staff Reports

GQ magazine recently named Asheville “the coolest city you’ve never been to” and commissioned author Charles Frazier to explain why.

First, Frazier praised the clean air and the mountains, and all the opportunities for outdoor sports. His favorite places lie along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

He enjoys the views and the mountain vistas from Craggy Gardens — and he has found the areas near the Bent Creek Experimental Forest and the North Carolina Arboretum are just about everybody’s favorite place for everyday hiking, jogging and biking.

A reader himself, Frazier said he loves the quantity and quality of bookstores downtown. Two favorites include the more than 50-year-old Captain’s Bookshelf and the two-story Battery Park Book Exchange in the historical and picturesque Grove Arcade.

There are literary connections throughout the town, he noted. Thomas Wolfe staged many of his novels in the area, which has also been visited by notables including O. Henry (William Sidney Porter), F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Edith Wharton and Henry Miller.

Other Asheville attractions include a potpourri of restaurants with character — and boutique hotels. In spite of locals’ gripes with tourism, Frazier said the city has been a tourist destination since at least 1795.

Then, there’s the beer. Frazier said Asheville’s craft scene is authentically indie. With about 25 breweries and a population approaching 90,000; the city has the highest per-capita brewer-to-resident ratio of the top 10 cities for beer drinkers as selected by the SmartAsset website.

Shoutouts also went to Wedge Brewing Co. and Highland Brewing Co., which Frazier called the “granddaddy of Asheville beer.”

Frazier , born in Asheville, continues to write in the area. His books include the novel “Cold Mountain” and “Varina,” a Civil War epic.

Asheville continues to make best-of lists, including Conde Nast’s Top Beer Cities in America, Frommer’s Best Places to Go, and the Huffington Post’s Best Food Destinations. The Matador Network gets credit for naming it the “Coolest Town in the U.S.”