Huntington, New York.

Huntington is the North Shore's downtown — the closest thing Suffolk has to a real night-out village. Main Street and New York Avenue are dense with restaurants, bars, the Cinema Arts Centre, the Paramount concert hall, and Munday's ice-cream window, and there's enough of it that people drive in from three towns over.

By day it's Heckscher Park and its museum, the harbor and Coindre Hall down at the water, and a Main Street of independent shops. By night it's live music at the Paramount and a walkable strip of restaurants. The LIT calendar below tracks the concerts, the gallery nights, and the weekend events worth the trip.