Most Beautiful States: Where does Florida rank?

Thrillist ranked the 50 states by their beauty with Florida coming in near the halfway mark at number 26. The most beautiful states were California, Hawaii, Alaska, Utah, and Colorado with Kansas, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Louisiana making up the least beautiful ones.

According to the site, Florida used to be made up of “flat, nasty swampland” before people came in and “built hundreds of miles of artificial beaches.” That didn’t last long as Thrillist said the people then “ruined those beaches by filling them with condos and hotels, once again rendering the state pretty darned ugly.” “Though there’s some nice swampland in Big Cypress National Preserve, and the rivers in north and central Florida, the state still ruined some great potential,” they continued.

So what’s so great about California? According to Thrillist, the beautiful locales such as Yosemite National Park, Redwood, Death Valley, and Anza Borrego make it worth the visit. ” Look, California’s not for everybody, but for sheer hotness, nothing else comes close,” the site stated. “You can see why, when settling the West, Americans chasing manifest destiny crossed expansive grasslands and steep mountains and punishing deserts only to arrive and say to themselves, The trip was worth it after all.”

Read more at Thrillist.