Sawmill Pizza and Brewshed in Clear Lake in northwestern Wisconsin would have been tasty. Frog Bay Tribal National Park in Red Cliff would have been picturesque. And Ten Chimneys in Genesee Depot enriching.

But with our schedules tight and since we both live in Madison, we chose a short trek to New Glarus. This is where travel writer Mary Bergin and I sat at a square wooden table and below one of the 110-year-old murals inside Puempel’s Olde Tavern and talked about her new book, “Small-Town Wisconsin.”

It was a Tuesday afternoon, so the scene was a bit more raucous, thanks to the weekly euchre game that has been a staple for the past 13 years for Dianna Truttmann, Jane Martinson, Barb Anderson and Rosalie Huntington.

Other customers nibbled away at cheese plates, some nursed taps of Hamm’s and Moon Man while the tavern’s owner, Chuck Bigler, anchored the north end of the bar. As we were leaving, he offered up an impromptu history lesson of the place that was established in 1893 by Swiss immigrants Joseph and Bertha Puempel and later owned by Otto Puempel for an astonishing 58 years. Bigler is just the third owner after taking over in 1993 and is a lifelong resident of this Green County village.

“It’s like something wraps itself around you and won’t let you leave,” said Bigler, who retired last year from his full-time job of 40 years at a local car dealership. “And never once in my 71 years have I ever had an inkling to not be here.”

For Bergin, Puempel’s is the epitome of community and is among the many inspirations for her book that features 50 small towns and pays homage to 100 others, all of them in Wisconsin and each under 5,000 people.

There is only one Puempel’s (pronounced pimples), but scores of communities throughout Wisconsin are loaded with their own stories, people and places. “Small-Town Wisconsin” (Globe Pequot), which Bergin began researching in fall 2021 to hit a deadline five months later, serves as a guide and has come out just as the state’s tourism season is kicking into high gear.

“Tourism is a healthy, good industry for a town to invest in. It can be good for a local economy and is very good for some of the economies that are in this book,” said Bergin, who has written five other books on travel and food.

“I think too often the communities that get the most attention in tourism are the destinations that are big and loud about it, meaning a deep marketing budget. But there’s more than that.”

While Kohler and Wisconsin Dells, both of which draw international crowds, are in the book, Bergin points to the Ozaukee County community of Belgium as one of her “under-the-radar” destinations. Located along Highway 43 between Port Washington and Sheboygan and just west of Harrington Beach State Park, the village of 2,245 people has embraced its heritage and is home to the International Luxembourg American Cultural Society and Center.

Built in 2009 under the auspices of Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture, the center features the “Roots and Leaves Immigration Museum” and is the only cultural center in the world celebrating the heritage and culture of Luxembourgers.

According to its history on the village’s website, when many of the immigrants began settling in the area in the 1800s much of Luxembourg had been annexed by Belgium. So people who lived in the area began to refer to their new home as the “Belgium area” because the settlers, while ethnically Luxembourgish, were citizens of Belgium when they left Europe. The area continues to be home to one of the largest populations of Luxembourg immigrants and their descendants in the country.

“The attention that the country of Luxembourg pays to Belgium is astounding,” said Bergin. “I would even argue that (former Milwaukee Mayor) Tom Barrett is U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg in part because of the respect that Belgium gets from Luxembourg. It’s a big deal.”

Bergin, 67, is well acquainted with her subject matter. She grew up on a dairy farm in Hulls Crossing, a hamlet just north of Greenbush in Sheboygan County. She spent first grade in a one-room schoolhouse and remembers when the local cheese factory was destroyed by fire. When she was in high school she waited tables at the resorts in nearby Elkhart Lake.

After graduating from UW-Oshkosh, she spent two years working at newspapers in Oklahoma and Kentucky before returning to Wisconsin, where she spent 20 years writing for The Capital Times in Madison and in 2006 wrote the book “Sidetracked in Wisconsin: A Guide for Thoughtful Travelers.” After leaving the paper in 2008, she dove into freelance writing with a focus on travel pieces, primarily in the Midwest. Her books also include “Hungry for Wisconsin” in 2008 and “The Wisconsin Supper Club Cookbook” published in 2015.

“Small-Town Wisconsin” builds on her work and is the ideal companion for road trips and perfect for the glove box.

“The soul of who we are as Wisconsinites — loyal, quirky, down to earth, humble — takes root with how and where we are raised,” Bergin wrote in the book’s introduction. “For many, our earliest memories are of life in or near a small town.”

The 195-page book, divided into four geographical quadrants, takes readers to five Door County communities, including Washington Island, along with Eagle River, Hurley and Peshtigo, among others in the state’s northeastern region.

There are trips to Spring Green, Gays Mills and Westby in the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin and to the Alpine Valley Music Theater near East Troy and the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay in southeastern Wisconsin.

The northwestern part of the state includes treks to Hayward, Chetek, Osseo and to Cornucopia, home to the state’s northernmost U.S. Post Office and the more inviting Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

And while Bergin does her due diligence on each of the 50 communities featured in the book, she also highlights nearby sites worthy of a visit. For the Dane County community of Roxbury, for example, the focus is on the Dorf Haus and its Bavarian menu, but Bergin also suggests side trips to Wollersheim Winery, along with eagle watching and cow chip throwing across the Wisconsin River in Sauk City and Prairie du Sac.

In Hurley, in far northern Wisconsin, Bergin writes about Silver Street and its proliferation of bars, but also points to the nearby National Finnish American Festival Cultural Center and the Plummer Mine Interpretive Park. And in Algoma, von Stiehl Winery takes center stage, but Bergin also writes about the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Hope 15 miles to the west.

Back in New Glarus, billed as “America’s Little Switzerland,” Bergin’s book includes a short interview with Beth Zurbuchen, president and CEO of the Swiss Center of North America, but also includes information about New Glarus Brewing Co. and the Chalet of the Golden Fleece Museum, located in the Swiss Alps chalet-style home of Edwin Barlow, who brought the Wilhelm Tell play to America in 1938.

“This is a small community. So to establish a cultural identity takes the participation and commitment of a lot of people. A lot of smaller communities don’t have that. They don’t think they have anything to distinguish themselves from others,” Bergin said as she sipped a 7-Up. “This (community) would be a lot different if people didn’t care. But people care.”