Still planning out your summer vacation and looking for a place to go? Have you considered Atlanta?
Oh, that’s right. You’re probably here already. But if you’re reading this in some exotic, far-off locale with a decent airport – say, Detroit – and you’re looking for a place to spend a few days and a little of your hard-earned coin, well, Atlanta should be on your list.
Number five on your list, actually.
At least, that is where we rank on a calculation of summer destinations by the list-happy analysts at WalletHub.
The Washington, D.C.-based company, which has made a virtual fetish of data-driven comparisons of America’s metro areas, used a series of measures to calculate the attractiveness of cities as summer getaways and ranked Atlanta fifth.
The ranking was based on a look at 80 metros using 30 different measures, some of them a matter of counting and some just a little fuzzy objectivity-wise. Metrics included travel costs, hassles, diversity of attractions, number of attractions, weather, things to do and the price and duration of the cheapest flights.
The average rank, of course, was 40th.
Cheapest to get to was Chicago. Lowest costs to visit was Knoxville. Most attractions was Las Vegas. Best parks and recreation was Washington, D.C.
Atlanta didn’t rank any higher than 11th on any of them. But it didn’t rank below average in anything. The region’s lowest rank was 39th and that was for local costs.
Yet when it was toted up, only four regions were better in overall ranking: Ahead of Atlanta were Las Vegas at number one, followed by Salt Lake City, Orlando and Los Angeles.
At the bottom overall was the Bridgeport-Norwalk-Stamford area of Connecticut, said WalletHub.
One particular note, given the recent high-profile trip of Atlanta leaders to Dallas-Fort Worth to examine what that competitive rival for business is doing to handle and encourage growth: Just behind Atlanta at number six was Dallas.
WalletHub’s primary business is to offer credit scores and credit reports online. The company also offers online financial advice through artificial intelligence.
For those curious about the most recent rankings – and for officials at various visitors' bureaus and chambers of commerce – a look at the company's methodology is available online.
About the Author
