Kansas City’s historic train station
I like this article from Travel & Leisure on the best cities in the USA for affordable getaways. OK, so they quoted me in it a few times, so of course I’m inclined to like it, but I think many of their recommendations (taken from reader input) are solid.
I especially like that they noticed how pedestrian-friendliness and hotels that don’t charge for Wi-Fi make a big difference in price perception. Goodbye Dallas sprawl, hello compact Portland—both Portlands actually.
Kansas City came in at #1, which I won’t argue with; I profiled it on this blog many years ago in a post on Middle America bargains . It’s a Southwest market, so flights are usually reasonable, and hotels average $100 a night. Plus their downtown has gone from dead to hopping in less than a decade.
Salt Lake City came in at #2 and it is a bargain 50 weeks a year. Hotel prices are a different story though when the Outdoor Retailer convention comes to town.
My former home of Nashville came in at #3, which I was happy to see. Prices are reasonable and you can walk everywhere if you stay downtown—including to the football and hockey stadiums. The Saints took the next two spots: San Juan and San Antonio.
You can follow that link at the top to go through the slideshow. Or see the rest of the list here, plotted on a map and broken down by factors like shopping and romance.
There are some great ones I think are missing, but like any survey, it’s only as good as the people voting. That’s why you still get a city like L.A. in there—the readers know it well. Most T&L readers have never set foot in some of the best bargains because they’re not big enough or talked about enough in glossy magazines: places like Lexington , Asheville, Chattanooga , Charlottesville , Boise, Ashland, or Madison. That’s okay though—you can have those bargains to yourself, no diamond-encrusted socialites in sight.
