Question about multi sites

Hello.

I have been working on an online community using drupal for a few weeks now and I have a question regarding multiple sites.

The online community that I am creating is based around geographic locations across the country.

I would like to be able to create a different version of the website for each location that I include into the site.

This means that I would like to have the ability to change the template, content and display. But keep the rest.

All the modules would work the same for all the sites and the users would be logging into the same site. Using the same Database.

However if a user can create content relative to one location, they would not be able to create content for another location.

Also there would be a default general version of the site if a user had not chosen a geographic location.

What is the best way to accomplish this?

I searched and found Virtual Sites (which seems like it is what I am looking for) but I hear rumors of it being abandoned.

Is the Domain Access Module the way to go? This seems like it also would accomplish what I am looking to do and stays updated.

When I am creating my drupal site, what standards and conditions should I be looking to keep in order to allow for multiple sites?

Is there a specific module that is most frequently used by developers to accomplish this goal?

This is going to be very important for my site as the community grows.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!

Thank you!