Canceled that flight to Cancun or that cruise out of Miami to the Caribbean?
You’re not alone. In light of the Covid-19 pandemic and worries over health and safety, many Americans will opt to “staycation” this year and holiday at home or nearby.
“We’re seeing a trend overall [that] people are booking trips closer to home, maybe going to a beach house a couple of hours away,” Cheryl Golden, director of e-commerce at InsureMyTrip.com, recently told CNBC. “Then, when people get more comfortable, they’ll continue to go farther and farther away from home, starting with domestic [destinations].”
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Looking to track which cities across the U.S. offered the best conditions for those close-in summer vacations, personal finance website WalletHub compiled a new 2020’s Best & Worst Cities for Staycations report.
The site compared more than 180 American cities across 15 key metrics measuring what it called “a fun-filled yet wallet-friendly staycation.” Indicators measured ranged from number of parks per capita to average home square-footage and type of weather in the summer.
A family enjoys an al fresco meal at the Legacy West cultural and entertainment district in Plano, Texas, WalletHub’s No. 1 city for staycations in 2020.
Visit Plano
Here are the 10 cities that topped WalletHub’s list of best staycation spots:
- Plano, Texas
- Boise, Idaho
- Tampa, Florida
- Charleston, South Carolina
- Lincoln, Nebraska
- Fort Smith, Arkansas
- Scottsdale, Arizona
- Grand Prairie, Texas
- Austin, Texas
- Orlando, Florida
Other cities didn’t do as well, ending up in the bottom 10.
Seven California cities — Chula Vista, Fremont, Oakland, Oceanside, Oxnard, San Jose and Stockton — and two in Rhode Island, Providence and Warwick, trailed all the others, apart from last-place finisher Pearl City, Hawaii.
To see where your city lands on WalletHub’s full list, the metrics used and the methodology, click here.