A national magazine that promotes an active lifestyle has listed Waterloo as one of 64 communities in its “2014 Best Towns” list.

Now, it’s up to online voters to decide who will be named “America’s Best Place to Live.”

OUTSIDE magazine, a monthly publication and website covering travel, sports, adventure, health and fitness, and the environment, has 675,000 subscribers.

For the fourth year, OUTSIDE is selecting the best small town in America based on access to peaceful outdoor activities, friendly neighborhoods, and proximity to large cities.

“We’re constantly looking for new towns we can talk about,” OUTSIDE associate editor Jonah Ogles told the Republic-Times.

Past winners of OUTSIDE’s “Best Towns” contest are Park City, Utah (2013), Richmond, Va. (2012), and Chattanooga, Tenn. (2011).

Ogles said the publication solicited information from friends and colleagues within its inner circle and narrowed the list down to 64 total cities across the country. “We had responses from the St. Louis area that Waterloo was a place where if they were buying a house they would want to live in that community,” Ogles said.

In past contests, the magazine would simply select a top 10 list and have its readers vote on the best town. This time, the magazine expanded its list to 64 towns that will go head-to-head in a “March Madness” college basketball type format broken down by region.

Editors put together a bracket of its 64 favorite towns in the country split up over four geographic regions, but only one winner will be crowned on June 15.

Currently, Waterloo is going up against Houghton, Mich., in the Midwest Region. Voting for this first round “matchup” ends Monday, May 19.

To vote for Waterloo, visit www.outsideonline.com/besttowns2014. (once you’re there, scroll down toward the bottom of the page and look for Waterloo in the “Midwest” section on the right)

There will be six total rounds of voting, each one lasting five days. Users will be able to vote once per round for each matchup. Winners will advance until there are only two towns remaining. Then, OUTSIDE will host a seven-day showdown to determine its “2014 Best Town.”

The winning town will receive marquee coverage in OUTSIDE’s September 2014 issue.

Waterloo has received positive exposure at the state and national level in recent years. Earlier this year, Waterloo was listed at 10th on the “50 Safest Cities in Illinois” as compiled by security website Safewise.com. In 2012, Charles Nathan Anderson, a retired high school geography and civics teacher from Florida, compiled a long-researched list of “America’s Best Small Cities” and had Waterloo on its list at 47th. He revised the list in 2013 and moved Waterloo up 17 spots to 30th.

Anderson said the list, which he has titled “In Search of Eden,” began while he was in college decades ago. Criteria used to compile his list included setting (including surrounding countryside), weather (pleasant 12-month climate), identity and population patterns, accessibility, adequate medical care, good schools and cost of living, employment opportunities, entertainment and personal safety.

“It’s a very pretty little town,” Anderson said of Waterloo based on a visit he made a few years ago. “I thought it was the ideal kind of town to raise a family, with access to St. Louis but still enough space.”