In contrast to the other US cities thread, what are the best US cities that you travelled to?Pic not related, I'm American but I've been to more cities outside of the US than in and I want to change that.
>>2647254Small towns in the US are super underrated because they weren't razed in the 1950s like cities were so they still feel like classic 1800s Americana
PhillyWashington DC Charleston, SCSavannah, GA Gainesville, FLSt. Augustine, FL Williamsburg, VA Fort Worth, TXAnn Arbor, MI Raleigh, NCDenver, COPortland, ORNo particular order. Some of those are sure to cause seething but I couldn't care less. You're welcome.
Charleston is a must-see.
>>2647257I grew up in a city that used to look like that years before memakes me sad desu>>2647258Philly and Ann Arbor are on my list since I'm close to them, Denver I want to go to for surenever been to Gainesville or St. Augustine but I lived in Ft. Lauderdale and I've been to Tampa, are the other two worth going to in comparison?
>>2647258Definitely not Philly, Gainesville, St. Augustine, or Portland.
>>2647254LASFNYCCHIPOR
>>2647263>Definitely not PhillyPhilly is mega underrated because people think it's Mogadishu. If you stay out of the the North West ghettos there's a ton to do for 3-4 days and some day trip options as well. BTw another good one is Annapolis, Maryland. Mega comfy Gettysburg too but it's a town not a city
>>2647263>Definitely not PhillyBecause? Fucking retard here thinking the whole city is Kensington
>>2647268Philly is just a worse version of everything around you. Substantially worse job market than other major cities but still an elevated cost relatively to smaller cities. It's a city for people who've given up in life.
Areas of Philly are kino>>2647257>>2647262this could be yours anons
>>2647268>>2647266I agree with these anons, The bad areas are really avoidable
Philly is bad. The crime and garbage is New Orleans and Portland levels combined. Somehow everything manages to be just as expensive as NYC even though people get randomly shot in broad daylight in the "nice" neighborhoods. Pulling into Philly on Amtrak is one of the bleakest things I've ever seen. Philly is legitimately closer to a 3rd world capital than probably any other American city.>t. from PA
>>2647361Philly is fine. Typical 4chan hyperbole from losers who watch too much tv.
>>2647258Where in Fort Worth? I've only been to the Stockyards a few times
>>2647362>>2647347As someone from PA with many friends in the city the only part of philly worth going to is reading terminal market for the cheesesteaks. There is currently a thread up about your typical casual philly expirence on /k/ >>61446570>>2647254Holland Michigan is my vote. The tulip festival is incredible, something like 20,000,000 tulips blanketing the whole area. The city itself has a vibrant culture that has never left from all the Dutch immigrants. The food is incredible, I reccomend Hops at 84 East and New Holland brewery. Take a trip down to Sagatuck and visit the dragons milk distillery there, order a keylime pie cocktail and have your mind blown.
>>2647405>>2647361More soul than anything you guys are posting
>>2647254Many of my favorite US cities are smaller cities/larger towns with universities in them. I was raised by professors, overeducated, and worked for universities for some years, so I wound up living in a series of fairly diverse college towns and cities for the first 20+ years of my life.Places I have lived and will always be fond of include but are not limited to: >Durham, NCAlmost a real/major city experience when combined with nearby Raleigh and Chapel Hill, each of which punch above their weight in terms of food, entertainment, and amenities; very solid local music scene(s), and some venues that get worthwhile touring acts. Pretty cheap for what you get, although this is more relevant to living there. Biggest downsides of the region are sprawl, traffic, and lack of public transit. Also quite sticky in the summer, but perhaps you like that. It’s been improving steadily for many years at this point—Parts of Durham proper used to be pretty sketchy, and downtown was almost empty outside of 9-5, but it’s actually seen a successful renaissance.>Madison, WICool setting (the downtown core is on a tiny, dense isthmus between two lakes). Some of the country’s best Southeast Asian restaurants. Very good local beer and ice cream. Especially nice lakeside in the summer. Some good places to see bands. Downsides include that it’s sort of remote unless you’re already in or going to the Midwest; plenty of bits of WI are low-key pleasant in a lot of ways, but it’s a lot of hours of driving from different regions of the country. Also has inadequate transit, although the bus system is almost good enough if you stick to the central parts of town and aren’t in a hurry. Oh, and the winter could literally kill you, but some people like it cold, and it’s warmer than Minnesota.>Cont’d below
>>2647547>Northampton, MAPart of a little cluster of college towns about two hours due W of Boston. Not really a city except on paper, but there’s a cozy, walkable, dense little downtown core. Very, very highly educated. Close to attractive, historic New England rural areas. Extremely liberal and slightly hippie, which probably infuriates some but I don’t care. Lots of lesbians. Surprisingly functional bus system, but it’s a semi-rural area so long routes can take a while. >Monterey, CA Not quite a real city, but extremely beautiful coastal setting, cute downtown area, and a nice handful of legitimately interesting tourist attractions. Not far from a lot of other California coastal towns that are worth visiting, particularly if you like road trips—it’s undeniably slow as hell for much of its length, but CA-1 offers literal hundreds of miles of the most scenic driving available in the United States. Keep going South for a couple of hours and you’ll hit underrated San Luis Obispo, a cute, slightly scruffier little city that is also worth saying hello to. There are many others, but these are some of my faves.
>>2647254I liked Murfreesboro a lot.
I'm not american, but I thought Pittsburgh was a neat city. Nice change of pace from all the other flat cities.Thought it'd be rough, and it was in some places. But that's my experience in all american cities; avoid downtown's homeless and you're good as a tourist.And Washington DC was way, way better than I was expecting. Probably my favourite US city, so makes it underrated compared to the likes of NYC, etc.
>>2647257Not this one though. This is Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. It’s very overrated.
Philadelphia is a pleb filter. Yes, MOST of the city is Mogadishu. A small minority is not. However, that minority contains the best city living and tourism in the country. Furthermore, the Philly suburbs are quite literally the only good suburbs in the country. Also, underrated are many college towns, Charlestown, Savannah, Tampa and St. Petersburg, Santa Fe and Taos, Southern Utah and Northern Arizona (not Sedona), Carson City, and San Luis Obispo.
>>2647547Everyone should recommend traveling to, but not living in, Madison.To add to the college town hype, Haverford in spring is nice, Flagstaff is awesome, and just walking around the various Pomona colleges is a treat. It's easy to forget that universities in the US are seriously on another level compared to those in other countries, which usually don't even try.
>>2647633Haverford Pennsylvania?Anyway, you don’t want to live in college towns if you’re older than about 25 and certainly older than 30 because you’ll have no social circle whatsoever. Everyone is aged 18-25 or 40+ (married with kids). Once you’re late 20s/early 30s college aged men become insufferable to be around and the girls can be hooked up with via tinder, but that’s it. You can’t really date them nor would you want to. I made the mistake of staying in my college town through my 20s and I think it really set me back a lot. I got a job at my Alma Mater and I thought it was a good job so I stuck with it, but now I realized I missed out on a lot. The best places to be 25+ are young, small-to-medium sized cities, places like Pittsburgh, Boston, Austin, Tampa, several state capitals, places like that. The really shitty thing is that there are really no places to go right now. It used to be that if you wanted to get rich, you’d head to New York or the Bay Area or maybe Seattle or Austin and there’d be a lot of young people there and it would be fun, but the median age of every state is 40s or 50s now and there’s no money to be had anywhere outside of Austin, and that’s only for tech workers and AI grifters I think. Miami is trying to position itself like a crypto hub, but that is doomed and Miami kinda sucks. So there’s nowhere really good, just tolerable.
>>2647258Seconding Portland but don’t understand all the love Denver gets. It’s the most forgettable major city in America
Santa Fe NM is unique. Smaller town. 400 years of history which is rare for America outside of the northeast. Good food and entertainment. Wouldn’t want to live there with all the weird artist types tho. Everyone in that town is some kind of artist
IDK what "underrated" or "overrated" actually means, but as an American who's seen 90% of my country, I have a tier list:>Must See TierNew York NY - concrete jungle where dreams are made of. No city like it. Even the shitty parts are a must visit. It's just the quintessential city and the capital of the world. So great they named it twice.>While You're Here Tier (great if you see it, but don't fly to see it)Los Angeles CA - the media hegemon that dictates what the 'culture' is; very influential media capital; huge sprawling megalopolis with so much amazing nature nearby; it's like the capital of the west coastLas Vegas NV - something about this city. It is a miracle it exists. It's like an experiment in the middle of the desert that is always changing. Washington DC - the capital; white marble buildings. many free museums and monuments. best public transitBoston MA - historic> It's a City Tier (regional hubs with their own personality)Chicago IL - birthplace of the skyscraper. Definitely feels like a city. Has it's own culture. More of a regional hub than a global. Houston TX - same as Chicago but more sprawling and Southern. San Antonio TX - a slight Tex-Mex edgeSan Diego CA - wonderfulSan José CA - Silicon Valley; tech brosIndianapolis IN - oasis in a sea of nothingnessEl Paso TX - MexicoTucson AZ - wild west>Rough but Rewarding Tier (underrated?)Philadelphia PA - zombies but worth it for the realnessNashville TN - music + methBaltimore MD - gothicMemphis TN - redneck bluesLouisville KY - hillbilly bluesKansas City MO - flyover bluesDetroit MI - punkish>Not Like The Other Girls Tier (tries to be quirky but all the same)Austin TXSan Francisco CAPortland ORSeattle WAMilwaukee WI>Human Farm Tier (soulless sprawl)Phoenix AZ - sprawling suburbsDallas TX - just a place where people workJacksonville FL - it never fucking endsFt. Worth TXColumbus OHCharlotte NCDenver CO>Hell TierAtlanta GA
>>2647740>IDK what "underrated" or "overrated" actually meansDon't worry your list already shows lol
>>2647676I'm almost 30 and still live in my college town. It's great because it's like a small town but walkable and my rent is crazy cheap. The key is to live in a college town that is connected to a major city. That way I have my social circle of young post-grad professionals and the job opportunities without the stress of actually living in an urban hellhole. I still don't have a driver's license and I save so much money to go out and actually travel. I work from home now too so I don't even need to commute anymore but it wouldn't be too far if I needed to. Not more than 10% of my monthly income is spent on rent here, yet all the benefits of living in a walkable town with plenty of green space next to a big city. Obviously I'm going to gatekeep this lol but figure it out.
Is salt lake city worth visiting?
>>2647749I think "worth it" would be relative to how far you are traveling to get there. It's incredibly safe and somewhat interesting due to the Mormons and mountains but not something I would go out of my way to visit. If you are visiting Utah's national parks too, it would be cool to visit for a day.
>>2647749the national parks near are worth. the city itself is nice, safe, boring, mormon
>>2647740>look guys i like the shithole cities that popular culture says are actually good!you have never been to most of those places, or belong on reddit. given you wrote:>Memphis TN - redneck bluesim guessing you have not been to most those places. there aren't rednecks in memphis, only niggers
yellow springs outside dayton
>>2647740What a fucking retard. only places on this list that MAYBE are worth visiting is boston or san deigo. Ive been to or lived in almost all of the cities here. Maybe 70 years ago this was a good list
>>2647676>Anyway, you don’t want to live in college towns if you’re older than about 25 and certainly older than 30 because you’ll have no social circle whatsoever.I think this varies enormously depending on the college town. If it’s a very small place with no economic/other center apart from the campus, I can imagine this being a challenge. But all the college towns on my list (>>2647547) have things going on independent of the schools. I lived exclusively in college towns until I was 30 and didn’t suffer—by the time I was like 24 or 25 I was basically never in venues that were completely dominated by students. I always managed to find friends my age through work and through hobbies (in my case, mostly music—I played in bands and went to a lot of shows). But I guess I also had the advantage of not being single; my now-wife was a grad student at one of the universities where I worked, so I was in a relationship that wound up lasting starting in my early twenties. If I’d been trying to date I can imagine things being a lot worse.
>>2647629Two of my friends from my home town moved to Philadelphia after they got married. The wife was a surgeon. She was walking home a month after they moved and someone shot her in the chest and stole her purse. She survived but has serious health problems now. Why would anyone want to live in a city like that? Literally thousands of US cities and towns are safer and nicer.
I like the smaller towns. Durango ColoradoOuray ColoradoSan Clemente CaliforniaLava Hot Springs IdahoFairfax CaliforniaCody WyomingHood River OregonSierra Madre CaliforniaSouth Lake Tahoe CaliforniaMammoth Lakes CaliforniaAvila Beach CaliforniaMiramar Beach FloridaNew Braunfels TexasMadison IndianaBethany Beach DelewareMissoula MontanaGreenville SCHere's my to do list: Burlington VermontPortland MaineBend OregonNashville TnAsheville NCCharleston SCNantucket MassMackinac Island MichiganSun Valley IdahoTaos New MexicoCedar Point Ohio
>>2648098I can give a thumbs up to Burlington, Portland ME, and Asheville without qualification. All have real charm. I also endorse Taos, but it’s a strange place—awash in vaguely artsy old women with lots of turquoise jewelry, arguably just a bit tourist trappish, but still has lots of character and the natural setting is striking. It’s also disproportionately posh for New Mexico, which is fine but weird given that it’s within spitting distance of a lot of frankly shocking Indian rez poverty and similarly deprived white methbillies.
>>2647759Well that shows that you have never been to SLC. Mormons stay out of this shithole, they prefer to be together in Utah county. Too hedonistic for them. We are turning into another liberal dump with homeless and drug use rampant. But there is a reason SLC is one of the fastest growing cities. Ease of opening a business, low cost of living, outdoor lifestyle. If we get the winter Olympics in 2030, shit is going to grow even faster.>>2647258You don't want to live in or even visit cities that are literally on the decline. Shitholes like Philly and Portland are losing population like nobody's business. Look at the downtowns, it's totally devoid of business and even tourists. San Francisco, LA, Oakland are there. NYC is its own thing, it will always attract people, but the money has left. It is so obvious if you faggots claim to have been to all these cities which ones are thriving and which have played the woke defund the police card. SLC is a different story. People are moving in from everywhere. Construction can be seen anywhere you look, especially high density residential. New businesses, public works, gentrifying neighborhoods, different kinds of people moving in, conventions literally every weekend. Imagine that kind of activity in Detroit. The locals are pissed but they are mostly uneducated or mormons. It's a great place to live and work. If you visit, it will be to enjoy the outdoors, not for the city. Nowhere else, possibly in the world, is the airport 15 minutes from downtown, and within 30 minutes of world class mountain sports. Hopefully we don't become another Denver, with a bunch of fucking white liberals screeching among a brown working class.
>>2648174Hard pass on SLC. Just a matter of time before water availability becomes an issue. Zero appeal for the long term.
>>2647257>>2647262>>2647347>>2647628>Jim Thorpe Seems like just a Tourist spot like Gatlinburg or something https://youtu.be/JL9MjGBVnpc?si=Uc9TNrlCqtDiR5Hy
>>2648094They’re not actually. What you just described is a 1 in a million sort of thing that could and does happen in any and every major U.S. city.
>>2648179>Just a matter of time before water availability becomes an issueMaybe. Also price of housing is ridiculous for what you get - basically a shitty one story rambler for $650k. But where else can you ski in the morning and go to work in the afternoon? Not same gay work from home garbage either, a real job that involves meeting people. Compared to NYC where I left, this is paradise. Just curious, where would you suggest that has the outdoors, a small city, decent airport? Hopefully not bumfuck Montana or Idaho. I thought about Seattle but I just left a liberal shithole. Probably never moving back east either.
>>2647682Denver is nice in the same way that Calgary is nice; it's not a shit hole and it has great view, well stratified economics and enough population growth that justify continuous development.Not as much urban decay, the winter keeps the homeless from getting unmanageable and crappy/ugly buildings have an economic case to be replaced with newer infrastructure.
>>2648552Reno
>>2648259New Hope is better
>San Diego (My personal Favorite)It's a beach town in SoCal that more conservative than LA and 30 minutes from Mexico. What else do I need to say. If i was a multi millionaire id have a condo there for sure. >St. Paul Its super comfy although this can probably be said about most of the Midwest. The architecture was old yet beautiful and reminded me of an old booming industrial town. Super nice people as well and>Tampa beach life but not fast and flashy like Miami and not hicksville like north Florida. >Fort Worth Much better than Dallas in my opinion.>RenoI had fun but it was probably because I was like 22. I don't gamble but i spent all my time partying and meeting cool people. Its close to lake Tahoe and imo better than Vegas. >East Texas Not a city obviously but nice people and a very slow and simple way of life. I visit a lot for work over the years and it's like a breath of fresh air every time. Nothing really changes there and as a passer through it's a very comforting feeling.
>>2648626>Fort Worth
>>2648604Why
>>2648626fuck off back to reddiit retard
>>2648660Nta but san Diego is beautiful
>>2648630Dallas sucks mainly because its hyped up to be what Fort Worth Austin and Houston have.t. a Texan that's actually lived there.>>2648660Being reddit has officially lost all meaning. imagine thinking someone liking St. Paul or Reno makes them reddit.>>2649930Best major city in the US imo
>>2648259I went to Jim Thorpe back in 2018 and it seemed like half the shops in the old town were closed. Has it got better? I could see that area being really expensive in a decade or two
>>2648343I'll chime in on the Philly thing too. I've been a total of 4 times in my life and spent 4 days in the city. In those four days, a person in our group was robbed at knife point in the middle of the day on South Street, I saw two people rob a homeless person at gun point, I was approached and offered crack cocaine, we were food poisoned at a White Castle, an artist who was working outside threatened to kill us with a hammer when we walked near them, someone in a car tried to hit us on purpose while we were biking, a dude in a cheesesteak place tried to fight me for "ordering too slowly", and a band we went to see cancelled and the venue refused to give us a refund. Of all the cities I've ever visited in my life, I have never felt more unsafe or experienced more problems in a shorter time period than in Philadelphia. The only way anyone could defend it would be if they had never experienced living in any other city.
>>2649983I've lived in Philly for 20 years, went to highschool downtown, and worked downtown by independence hall and have never seen anything like that besides homeless people so it's obvious you're making stuff up. The south street story is laughable
>>2648259> Seems like just a Tourist spotIt’s not even that. It’s just a mediocre town with a Main Street that boomers pretend is incredible.
>>2650009https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/08/03/hitchhiking-robot-destroyed-philadelphia-ending-cross-country-trek/31051589/All you need to know about Philly.
>>2647749only if you like the outdoors. it's proximity to the mountains is really unbelievable. its also comparatively close to some of the best national parks in the country. canyonlands and Yellowstone. I was there last fall and I loved the hell out of it. pic related is looking at the city from antelope Island.
>>2648098>Durango Colorado >Ouray Colorado drove through them last fall. ouray was beautiful. I don't understand how anyone could live there though. it's so tiny.
>>2650057Somehow I think it would’ve met this end in the enriched neighborhood of any city
>>2647749For the national parks and ski slopes yes but the Mormons make the place weird. They make the whole of Utah weird. It would be paradise if they weren’t so damn weird honestly.
>>2647746Did you live there as a grad student or faculty member? Life in a college town is much better as one of those than a staff member or someone not affiliated with the university over 25.
>>2647569Pittsburgh is very underrated overall and D.C. is great to visit but iffy to live in. There’s just a weird vibe that people in D.C have and obviously a lot of the people are fake striver politico types or else young radical women. The city is actually filled with young women but they’re all progressive activists or immigration lawyers or whatever.
>>2647749I never liked the city itself but it’s similar to Denver. You don’t go to visit the city, you go for the mountains and outdoors access
>>2648098You can skip Bend. It was great 15 years ago. Now it’s overcrowded with insufferable California expat yuppies
>>2648631Second Reno. It has a lot of schizos and junkies like any city with legal gambling, but it gentrified hard around the time Tesla moved into Sparks. It has incredible outdoors within 30-45 minutes and lots of good restaurants, beer, entertainment. The west part of town is super nice
>>2650442Ok, let's put Reno on the map. How does it compare to SLC? Same problems with water, junkies, no culture. Better entertainment laws and no weird alcohol laws. No Mormons is a plus. No skiing nearby is a major drawback. The Wasatch mountains is what makes SLC a destination. World class skiing and mountain activities. Basically the reason I moved here. SLC is basically this cultureless, ultra religious, cult like vibes in certain parts and a wannabe liberal shithole in others. Mormons stifle anything good about another culture. They even ruin the food. Fucking rednecks can't even handle shrimp. Didn't mean for this to be a rant against SLC, but that's what it is.I'm interested in an alternative to SLC that has outdoors nearby, is not totally ruined by liberalism defund the patriarchy woke fucking garbage. Has some culture (in this area, SLC is getting much better), good for business (not CA or NY), and a decent airport nearby that has at least a few international routes. Reno might fit the bill if you don't do winter sports, but I can't imagine moving from one backwards shithole to another.
>>2650478Ski resort towns in the U.S. are just rich person playgrounds, so every one of them will be cultureless. They are just not so religious outside of SLC-Park City. Then again, I don’t know much about ski towns in New England so maybe they’re better, but this is how it is in the Western US and Canada.
If you aren't triggered by slaver and the Civil War, then Natchez Mississippi is great. It is the only city that the Union Army didnt burn to the ground. We really had fun. Book a room in an antebellum mansion downtown and great food and drinks and sights are in walking distance. Just check the time climate. Mississippi is miserably hot and humid from May until September.
>>2650057Good, gay influencer robot
>>2650053>>2648259>a Main Street that boomers pretend is incredibleIt's nothing special, central PA doesn't have much any walkability So Jim Thorpe blows their minds. The Rolling hills around Jim Thorpe are beautiful though
>>2650478Reno is less than an hour from Lake Tahoe
>>2650478Reno has amazing skiing 45-55 minutes away
>>2650442I like Reno, but it definitely has a crime and a homeless problem. I wouldn't live there. On the California side of the Sierras near Oakhurst, you can still find undeveloped forest land for less than 40K per acre. You wouldn't even have a neighbor.
>>2647740>El Paso>Not in hell tierThe fact that you would suggest anyone let alone a traveler would go to El Paso is horrifying in itself
>>2650791I’m not a cityfag but I don’t want a 40 minute drive to the grocery store and untenable roads in the winter
>>2650840El Paso is hot, dusty, and overall pretty shitty. I found the people to be very welcoming though. Good food and lots of hot Latina women. Enjoyed my time there and would visit again
>>2647684Agree on Santa Fe. Spent a couple nights there last summer and it was amazing. Didn’t know a town like that existed in this country
>>2647684>>2650915What exactly is so great about the place? A lot of writers live there and rave about the place but it seems like just another walkable small town but in the Southwest to me.
>>2650551Not really. It’s typical Appalachia hills but the soil is shitty shale and rock.
>>2650971It has a lot of 16th-17th century Spanish influence. I don’t know of another town like it. Yes there are a ton of artistic types there. George RR Martin lives there. Cormac McCarthy lived there. Everyone is some kind of artist. The downside is it’s a huge tourist destination for Texas liberals and they’re everywhere when the weather is nice
>>2650972Buy land there and frack
