Unwind from Life with These Small Town Shows

1. Gilmore Girls

Lorelai and Rory Gilmore navigate life in Stars Hollow at approximately 200 words per minute, fueled by enough coffee to power a small nation and pop culture references that'll make you feel like the smartest person in the room (if you get them). When your own life feels overwhelming, there's something deeply soothing about watching people debate the crucial town meeting agenda item of whether the streetlights are too bright.

2. Schitt's Creek

Watching a formerly wealthy family lose everything and land in a tiny town they once bought as a joke shouldn't be this comforting, but here we are. The Rose family's journey from designer labels to sharing a motel room becomes an unexpected lesson in personal growth. What starts as a fish-out-of-water comedy transforms into something genuinely heartwarming as these formerly shallow socialites discover that home isn't a place—it's the people who reluctantly grow to tolerate you.

3. Hart of Dixie

New York surgeon Zoe Hart inherits a medical practice in tiny Bluebell, Alabama, and quickly discovers that her designer heels and short shorts are no match for small-town politics or the local friendly alligator, Burt Reynolds. Love triangles abound in this show like mosquitoes at a summer barbecue, but the real romance is between Zoe and the town that slowly becomes her home.

4. Everwood

After the death of his wife, Dr. Andy Brown swaps Manhattan skyscrapers for Colorado mountain peaks, dragging his kids to the tiny town of Everwood in hopes that fresh air and small-town living will somehow glue their shattered hearts back together. Grab the tissues because this show will make you well up as you watch Andy fumble his way through single parenthood while becoming the physician an entire town depends on.

5. Dawson's Creek

Whether you’re Team Dawson or Team Pacey (Pacey 100%!), Capeside, Massachusetts became the blueprint for every fictional small-town that came after it, complete with a creek that’s really more of a river if we’re being technical. Four teenagers navigate love, loss and vocabulary words that no actual teenager has ever used in casual conversation, but when life gets messy, there’s something comforting about problems that can be solved with a late-night heart-to-heart on a dock.

6. Virgin River

Nurse practitioner Melinda Monroe arrives in Virgin River, California, to start fresh and immediately discovers that small-town life comes with more drama than her big-city existence ever did. Between the grumpy bar owner with a heart of gold, the town’s complicated romantic histories and more secrets than a soap opera, Virgin River proves that escape doesn’t mean boring.

7. Sweet Magnolias

Serenity, South Carolina, is where three best friends pour margaritas and dish about life. Maddie, Helen and Dana Sue have been friends since childhood, and watching them navigate divorce, dating and opening a business together is like getting a masterclass in how to show up for the people you love while dealing with a local gossip mill that runs faster than fiber-optic internet. It’s the perfect antidote to a day that tried to break you.

8. Corner Gas

Dog River, Saskatchewan, is so small and uneventful that the local gas station is the town’s main attraction. With humor so dry it could survive a prairie drought, the locals engage in pointless banter and petty disputes about everything from lawn ornaments to Brent flipping out when Oscar dares to change a number on the price board. It proves that you don’t need drama or romance or even a plot, really, to enjoy some small-town charm.

9. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Okay, so Sunnydale isn’t exactly the sleepy small-town of your dreams, unless your dreams involve weekly apocalypses and a suspiciously high mortality rate, but hear me out. Buffy Summers and her Scooby Gang prove that small towns can have big problems and that fighting demons is somehow less exhausting than fighting your inner ones. When real life feels like too much, there’s something oddly comforting about watching a tiny blonde girl save the world over and over and over again.

Escape Life’s Noise with These Small Town Shows