Survey Says
Travel + Leisure proves what everyone already knew: Austin trumps other Texascities
According to a recent survey conducted by Travel + Leisure on America’s Favorite Cities, visitors and residents alike declared Austin America’s favorite city in Texas — but what else is new?
Readers were able to rate 35 cities in America in 8 different categories: People, Nightlife, Culture, Shopping, Food/Drink/Restaurants, Quality of Life and Visitor Experience, Best Times to Visit and Type of Trip.
In comparison with the other 34 cities, visitors to the Texas state capital ranked the people of Austin as the fifth best overall while local residents, of course, named us first.
Our city also made the top 10 in the nightlife category, (comprising of cocktail hour, singles/bar scene, & live music/concerts and bands) beating out cities like Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The survey also allows readers to choose two cities to face-off with one another, declaring a winner in each comparison. When facing-off against the other three cities in Texas that were included, Austin comes out on top in each one.
The people of Austin were voted more attractive, more intelligent, friendlier and a lot more tech-savvy than our Texas neighbors in San Antonio, Houston and the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
While we beat out Dallas in all eight categories, Houston surpassed us in Culture and Shopping and San Antonio edged out ahead of us in the Culture category as well.
When we take a look at our city by itself, the categories get broken down even further to subcategories, allowing us to take third in categories like Best Barbecue, Tech-Savvy and Athletic/Active.
Our low ranking subcategories make sense: while we have an abundance of independent thrift stores in Austin, we don’t necessarily have our own “Rodeo Drive,” leading us to be ranked 30th in luxury stores and honestly, rightly so. Being host to the latest Gucci store in town just doesn’t seem to fit with Austin’s unique identity.
Still, we’re thriving as one of the top 10 places full of offbeat, intelligent, athletic and proud Austinites. Home to great barbecue and “street food,” a favorite “wild weekend” destination and of course, an incomparable live music scene.
Again, what else is new?