Top 10 Must Visit Cities In America

Question asked was - Which are the 10 must-visit cities in America? I could just list the 10 cities I like the most, the hub would be over in a couple of lines, and everyone would be happy forever. But I like to complicate things. :)

Must visit for what? Are we talking about the most visited cities in the U.S.? Or the ones with the most things to do on vacation? And since we're talking about that, what kind of things? New York is a great place for the shopping, nightlife, sight seeing, dining, museums and other 'urban attractions'. Beaches? Not so much. What about the hotels in New York? Costly and dinky cubicles in high-rise buildings with a view of other high-rise buildings.

And what about the weather? Would anyone go to Seattle if you took into account the dismal weather? And then there's parks and pollution and pet-friendliness and most importantly, the people - Which city has friendly people, beautiful people, too many people?

Anyway, to make matters simple, let's refer to the court of public opinion.Conde Nast Traveler recently published their 2008 Readers' Choice Awards, which included a survey of over 37,000 of their readers' preferences and likes. Included in the results is a listing of the top 10 cities in the U.S., ranked according to the number of people who voted for each city as the best.

Considering the large number of people voting, and the fact that all these people had varied reasons for voting for a specific city, its fair to say that only the cities which do well in most aspects ended up at the top of the list.

Photo by kangotraveler via flickr (creative commons). San Francisco maintains its position from last year as the best American city. But in a surprise, Charleston, SC pushed New York City down from to third place. The positions from 4-10 are occupied, in order of ranking, by Santa Fe, Chicago, Carmel, Honolulu, Savannah, San Diego and Sedona.

You want more? Ok. I did some poking around, and here's a few more top 10 city lists which might be helpful.

The economy is in a bad state, and spending on travel and vacations is at a historic low. Given that, this list of top 10 places for value vacations from Hotwire may be very useful. On the other hand, if you have a rich uncle who wants you to blow a hole in his bank balance, then here's a list of the most expensive cities.

CNN's Money Magazine lists the best places to live. I figure if these are the best places to live, then at least some of them would be ideal for a nice relaxing vacation in small town America if you live in a stressed out urban metropolis. You might also want to take a look at their list of cities with the highest percentage of singles and an over-30 scene.

If you're a tree-hugger who wants to visit the greenest cities, then SustainLane has a neat listing, with categories for clean air, congestion, transit, etc.

Worried about how pet-friendly your vacation destination is? Here's a list of the top 10 dog-friendly cites in North America.

And what do foreigners think are the most visitable cities in the U.S.? Here's a list of cities which got the highest number of overseas visitors.

And lastly, if you're a geek, Wired has a list of the top ten tech towns.