Having made the mistake of mentioning on a forum that “on my list of top 20 U.S. cities, L.A. wouldn’t even be on it”, I’m now being called to task to produce such a list. So be it. Note that this is all done in the context of tourism. For example, since I have family in LA that would be good reason why I would want to go there, but such considerations would be irrelevant to a random tourist.
If I had to order this list tomorrow, I’m sure the ordering would be different. Also, I’m stretching the concept of “city” a lot here to mean more like “region a tourist might visit”. To increase the degree of difficulty, I’ve tried to capture a wide range of places.
- Chicago, IL
- Sedonda, AZ
- Las Vegas, NV
- Washington, DC
- Vail, CO (summer only)
- Memphis, TN
- Flagstaff, AZ (or, rather, the Grand Canyon)
- New York, NY
- Cedar City, UT (or, rather, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks)
- New Orleans, LA
- Portland, OR
- Seattle, WA
- Bozeman, MT (and nearby Yellowstone National Park)
- Farmington, NM (or, rather, Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon)
- San Fransisco, CA
- Kihei, HI (Maui)
- Boston, MA
- Captiva, FL
- Taos, NM
- San Diego, CA