Design Normalization

Hi,

I don't know what is the best design practice for this example:

I have a table USERS with: id, name, ..., location_id
and a table LOCATIONS: id, name

what do you think is best:
1. store the USERS and LOCATIONS relationship in a third table called User_to_Location: user_id, location_id
or
2.leave it as it is with two tables and having the location_id in the USERS table?

in the 1. option i should make two joins for querying
in the 2. option i should make one join for querying

but maybe the second is not a good design practice ? i don't know...

Do you have any suggestion?

Thank you very much

re: Design Normalization

Can a user belong to multiple locations? If not, keep the location_id in USERS table otherwise create a third table.

re: Design Normalization

Ok thank you very much!