With travel and tourism industries greatly affected by COVID-19 with restrictions forcing travelers to potentially stay home this summer, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its report on 2020’s best and worst cities for staycations.
To identify the best spots for staying local, WalletHub compared more than 180 cities across 15 key indicators of a fun-filled yet wallet-friendly staycation. Its data set ranges from parks per capita to the average home square footage and the idealness of summer weather, according to the report.
The best city for a staycation was Plano, Texas, followed by Boise, Idaho; Tampa, Fla.; Charleston, S.C.; Lincoln, Neb.; Fort Smith, Ariz.; Scottsdale, Ariz.; Grand Prairie, Texas; Austin, Texas; and Orlando, Fla.
The worst spot was San Jose, Calif., followed by five more California cities – Oceanside, Stockton, Fremont, Oxnard, and Oakland. Providence R.I.; Warwick, R.I.; Chula Vista, Calif.; and Pearl City, Hawaii rounded out the top 10.
Highlights from the report included:
- New York City has the most parks (per square root of population), 1.474633, which is 23.9 times more than in Hialeah, Fla., the city with the fewest at 0.061587.
- San Francisco has the most bike rental facilities (per square root of population), 0.060037, which is 49.4 times more than in Detroit, the city with the fewest at 0.001215.
- San Francisco has the most walking routes (per square root of population), 39.164353, which is 31.7 times more than in El Paso, Texas, the city with the fewest at 1.234185.
- Fort Smith, Ark., has the lowest average price of pizza, $8.00, which is 1.9 times lower than in Stockton, Calif., the city with the highest at $15.25.