Wrong! It's the time to pick up the pace and make up for the months we sat around thinking about what we could be doing — hiking, biking, camping — if only we lived in Arizona or Florida.

By May, those places are sweatboxes and our time in the sun has arrived. We’ve got Lake Superior at our doorstep, rivers and lakes everywhere and the best bicycle trails in the nation. So go!

I've been to some of the places listed in those books, but I'll never see them all in my lifetime. I’ll have a fine time reading about them, though. Then I’ll toss some clothes in a bag and be perfectly happy on my orbits around Lake Superior and the Mississippi.

In 2000, Joy Gieseke was traveling to Madison from her economic-development job in Kansas when she stopped for a few hours in Mineral Point, Wis. She went about her business, but eight months later, she started looking for a job there, found the chamber position open and grabbed it.

They're real towns, of course, but they're always on their best behavior because tourists are always watching, and many have evolved in lockstep with tourism.

That means now is a good time to explore them, before the other tourists flock in.

Tops on this list is Viroqua, a southwest Wisconsin town that caught the eye of expatriates from Madison long ago but recently has become more tourist-friendly with the opening of Main Street Station. This indoor public market houses a cafe, organic ice-cream parlor, shops and the Greenman Music Hall, which holds regular concerts and events. And the Driftless Folk School teaches classes in such homespun arts as spinning and sausage-making. Once, Viroqua was notable mainly for having the only stoplights in scenic Vernon County; those days are over. Details: www.viroquapublicmarket.com.