The 10 Best Places To Raise A Family In New Hampshire For 2022

New Hampshire isn't just any New England state, it's actually one of the safest, most family friendly states in America.

Ask any Granite Stater and they will tell you that there are a ton of family friendly activities everywhere you turn, here. The White Mountain State is just one big playground for little and big kids alike.

Yes, if you're looking for a state with affordable, family friendly staycations, New Hampshire is your place. There are currently 93 State Parks, a plethora of super clean beaches just East of Hampton and over ten skiable mountains just North of Meredith. And if those family friendly activities don't interest you, the MWV Children's Museum in Conway or the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord will surely keep your family entertained for an entire weekend. However, if zoos are more your style, a family visit to Carriage Shack Farm in Londonderry, should do the trick.

More importantly, New Hampshire residents know that keeping a state's economy strong, jobs plentiful, and salaries competitive is a necessary undertaking if they want to keep families safe, educated, and employed. And that's just what they're doing. New Hampshire has some of the best schools in the country. Blue Ribbon elementary schools, gold star high schools, and colleges like the University of New Hampshire in Durham and Dartmouth College in Hanover, have been delivering the next generation to work at major New Hampshire companies like Timberland in North Conway and Planet Fitness Inc. in Dover.

To take a closer look at New Hampshire's top ten best places to raise a family for 2022, grab your family a pipin' hot basket of apple cider donuts in Contoocook, find a sunny spot on Wolfeboro's Lake Winnipesaukee, and read on.

To narrow down the most family friendly places in New Hampshire, we looked to the US Census for several factors: crime, education, family friendly activities and percent of households that currently have children. The cities also had to have a population of at least 5,000.

We ended up with 22 family friendly cities. Needless to say, it was quite difficult to narrow down the most family friendly places in New Hampshire for 2022.

The best place for families in New Hampshire? Kudos to Durham for taking the number one spot.

To see how your favorite New Hampshire place compared, take a look at the list below; and if you don't see it there, head to the bottom.

Check out some more reading about New Hampshire and the best places for families in the country:

• Best Places To Live In New Hampshire
• Cheapest Places To Live In New Hampshire
• Best Cities To Raise A Family In America
• Best States To Raise A Family In America

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Methodology: How do you determine which place is best for families in New Hampshire anyways?

To give you the places in New Hampshire which are best for families, we have to look at a handful of metrics. Of course, we want to measure the type of people who live in each city, and make some assumptions about what's family-friendly and what isn't.

So we researched the internet for a database that contains all that information.

How we crunched the family friendly numbers for the Granite State

We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using U.S. Census data produced for the state of New Hampshire, we looked at every single city in the state. We paid particular attention to:

• Crime (Both violent and property)
• Quality of local schools
• Distance to a major city without necessarily being in it
• % of households with children
• Family-friendly amenities nearby (museums, libraries and colleges)

We then gave each city a Family Score.

The higher the score, the better the city is for families. We also limited our results to cities with populations over 5,000 people. For New Hampshire, that meant a total of 22 cities. You can download the data here.

Summary: The Best Places To Raise A Family In New Hampshire

If you're looking for a breakdown of cities in New Hampshire ranked by criteria that most would agree make a place a great spot for families, this is an accurate list.

Here's a look at the best cities for singles New Hampshire according to the data:

1. Rochester
2. Manchester
3. Somersworth

For more New Hampshire reading, check out:

• Best Places To Live In New Hampshire
• Safest Places In New Hampshire
• Cheapest Places To Live In New Hampshire

Where Are The Best Places For Families In New Hampshire?