With around 82 percent of Americans planning to travel this summer but inflation making trips costly, the personal-finance website WalletHub recently released its report on “2025’s Best & Worst Cities for Staycations.”
To identify the best spots for staying local, WalletHub compared more than 180 cities across 41 key indicators of a fun-filled yet wallet-friendly staycation.
The data set ranged from parks per capita to restaurant-meal costs.
The best cities for staycations were Cincinnati; Orlando. Fla.; Las Vegas; Honolulu; Chicago; St. Louis; Tampa; Salt Lake City;, Atlanta; and San Diego.
The worst cities were New Haven, Conn.; Anaheim, Santa Ana and Oakland, Calif.; Irving, Texas; Hialeah, Fla.; Chula Vista, Calif.; Pearl City, Hawaii; Fremont, Calif; and Yonkers, N.Y.
Best versus worst takeaways from the survey were:
- New York has the most parks (per square root of population), which is 26.5 times more than in Miami, Fla, the city with the fewest.
- Honolulu has the most tennis courts (per square root of population), which is 18.8 times more than in Mesa, Ariz, the city with the fewest.
- Orlando has the most ice cream and frozen yogurt shops (per square root of population), which is 25.8 times more than in Lewiston, Maine, the city with the fewest.
- Amarillo, Texas, has the lowest cost of house-cleaning services, which is 3.4 times less expensive than in Juneau, Alaska, the city with the highest.