No big-market radio tease here. A study on the best fall cities in the U.S. has been released, and Boston is Number One.
When I heard this news, I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought the list-topper would be another spot in Massachusetts: Salem. And since I just finished putting together this piece on how you’d have to be out of your mind to visit Salem in October, I thought I’d look pretty foolish if Salem was named number one. Thankfully, that’s not the case. Oh, and do visit Salem. Just not in October.
Playstar recently asked: which U.S. city is the best to visit during the fall? And they came up with this study. As always, I’m interested in the “how” when it comes to pieces like this. Their overall scores for cities were calculated by taking into account Starbucks per capita, Instagram per capita, pumpkin patches per capita, urban tree coverage, and Gilmore Girls search volume. No kidding.
Best Fall Cities: Boston Tops the List
Again, I wasn’t looking to bury the lede here: Boston came in first with an overall score of 67. What I’m interested in is the other nine cities that round out the Top 10. Now that we know the criteria used to tally up the scores and lay out the list, let’s take a look and pass judgement. Because we’re in New England, where autumn rules. And this is what we do.
Scroll through the Top 10 below with my pithy comments peppered in. And if you want more, be sure to check out our Wicked Fall Guide, chock-full of fun fall things to do and see. Oh, and one more plug for the full study, which has all the cool graphics and an interactive map. You can take a look at all of that here.