Durham is a cozy little town whose residents generally welcome UNH students. With the college in the middle of town, everything a student needs to take advantage of the quaint village is within walking distance. Main Street, where most attractions are located, runs along one edge of campus and provides shopping, eating and nightlife. Plus, campus is just over an hour’s drive from all that Boston has to offer. UNH takes over the town of Durham, which has an awesome Main Street full of good food and places to hang out. You can get anywhere in Durham by foot, and if you’re feeling lazy, you can hop on a bus. Downtown Durham’s best hangout spots include Wings Your Way and Durham House of Pizza (affectionately called DHOP). Wings has an incredible selection of wraps and burgers and a quirky atmosphere that you can’t help but love. On weekends you can always find people eating there, some sharing a pitcher of beer while watching a game on the huge flat screens. DHOP is famous for their $1.50 slices of pizza after 11pm on weekends, when students queue up in a long line to grab some late-night grub. There is also a cute little coffee shop called Breaking New Grounds that’s always buzzing with student activity, and the outdoor seating makes for good people-watching while you’re sipping that cup of joe. There are several bars sprinkled throughout downtown that contribute to UNH nightlife. Adventurous students who want to get out of Durham can take a bus across the bay to nearby Portsmouth. The old town is a great place to go for students looking for a good dinner (including Mexican, sushi, and more) or a more laidback bar. A lot of students also like the Stone Church, which is only a bus ride away in Newington. On weekends, they feature a lot of indie-folk bands that always draw big crowds of music lovers. Whether you feel like staying around campus or taking a short bus ride somewhere else, there is a ton of stuff to do around UNH.

The 1,100 acres of UNH’s campus are postcard-perfect, with wide wooded lawns and historic brick buildings. Thompson Hall is the centerpiece of campus and students are often found reading, playing Frisbee or napping on the grass outside the building. Most of UNH’s facilities are located within a ten-minute walk from Thompson Hall, so campus is fairly compact and easy to navigate. The ice-skating rink is located on campus, and since it’s open to the public, lots of students take advantage of the activity on cold weekends.

The dorms provide the quintessential college experience for as long as undergrads can handle it. Most dorms (especially freshman housing) tend to have a partying atmosphere, but if you’d rather come home to a more peaceful environment, there are quieter options as well. There are 27 dorms at UNH. The major dorms on campus include the four freshman dorms, Stoke Hall, and Congreve Hall. The freshman dorms, some of which house over 650 students, are some of the biggest buildings on campus, and they’re usually known as the wildest. All the freshman dorms are relatively far from Main Street and can thus feel a bit secluded, but with so many people living together, the geographic isolation helps to create a sense of community among residents. Most incoming freshmen want to live in these dorms so that they’ll be with lots of other new students, but those who don’t get placed there won’t be alone: UNH housing saves 25% of every other hall for freshmen, so you’ll never be the only freshman in your dorm. Stoke is an eight-floor high-rise building with about 650 students and a reputation as one of the rowdier housing options. Some wings are co-ed while others are single-sex. While the Resident Assistants try their best to keep noise levels down during quiet hours, Stoke is known for being a loud place to live. Residents usually complain that the entire building shares just two elevators, so the wait can seem interminable. Congreve Hall is a relatively new dorm that houses almost 300 students. Because of its prime location on Main Street next to the Whittemore Center (UNH’s arena), a lot of students list Congreve as their number one choice for housing. The hall has great study lounges and usually stays fairly quiet. It also has a lot of singles for those who don’t want a roommate.

UNH is NCAA Division I and a member of the America East Conference. Hockey is the biggest sport on campus and the program has turned out many professional hockey stars; football draws some big crowds as well. Hockey is one of the top sports that UNH is known for. There’s nothing like seeing fish being thrown onto the ice after the first goal at a home game. Broomball is a really popular intramural sport. It’s played on the huge rink, and people run around in their sneakers trying to make goals. There are a lot of bumps and bruises involved, but it requires no athletic ability and more than 5% of the school participates!