Cast aside all arguments, it has been decided: The World's 20 Best Cities

That's a lot of Spanish cities

I’ve only been to twelve. The inclusion of three cities in Spain makes the list suspect.

The World's 20 best cities for milquetoast tourists to visit for a couple days.

Le fucking snore.

The reason why tourists go to certain cities is because they are the best cities. If there were better ones, tourists would go to them.

Is that the same reason why stupid fat cows go to Starbucks and McDonald's? Best coffee and best hamburgers?

I'm happy to see Budapest and Milan in the top 10.

[quote] The reason why tourists go to certain cities is because they are the best cities.

Well, that certainly explains Orlando.

It reads like a DL thread. A list of cities they've never been to but know EVERYTHING about and are about to tell you.

I'm not interested in a "best of" list with more than five entries. You know cities 7-20 don't deserve to be on that list and were put there in a random order.

Chattanooga is one of the cities missing from the list.

Las Vegas one of the world’s best cities. Ha ha.

R11 - I know - that alone should make you question the list.

I don't know how you can have Sydney at #1 and not list Melbourne, which is arguably more interesting, easier to get around and definitely a better night life.

Apropos of nothing, the Melbourne based man I've secretly pined over for an embarrassingly long time is currently in Kyoto. Alas, I am old, fat and married and he is single and straight.

I lived near Berlin for a while, and I really liked it, but I don’t even think it’s the best city in Germany.

Scoring these cities to the second decimal seems odd and suspicous. There are only 2 points difference between 20th and 10th.

Shit list. No Montreal which regularly shows up for best neighborhoods.

Los Angeles is an underrated city / metropolitan area for tourists to visit.

[quote]It's a Conde Nast Traveller Readers' Choice selection, so you know it's definitive.

Just the opposite. I don’t care what these people think.

List made by an uncut dick fetishist.

Chicago? Lmao

You take everything quite literary, don't you R18?

Las Vegas?!? I just lost respect for Condé Nast.

Hurray for Tokyo.

Is it, R17. For me, Los Angeles always seemed a little impenetrable to the outsider. It's not that it's uninteresting, rather that it needs a decoder, or an insider guide to make sense of it, to present it in a good way. If I had to pick a place to live for one year and learn some of its ways, Los Angeles might be on the list because it is so enigmatic and different to what I know. The geography makes it all the more disjointed; the outsider feels he's seeing everything having come through the back door, the service entrance.

I've no interest in studio tours or celebrity themed places or activities, no interest in Disney, no interest in beaches, so maybe I'm at a disadvantage, but it seemed to me that its virtues would be slow and incremental in their discovery - not that that's a terrible thing, but a center-less place that so successfully hides its charms wouldn't be my recommendation for any but the most specific of tourists.

These "best" lists are always interesting. Mainly because one man's best is another man's hell hole. I've been to all 3 of the cities listed in the USA and several of the foreign cities listed , and I have to laugh at some of them being on the best of anything.

Best cities “TO VISIT”

I'm so glad my city isn't on that list. We don't want a bunch of people moving here. Love a midsize city. Plenty to do. Decent airport. Great restaurants. Art thrives because real artists can afford to live here. Great museums. And within an easy drive to some major world class cities when you want that experience. Grateful to live here.

Again—to visit, not to live in. It’s a travel magazine.

I lived in Gaza for two years. Very nice.

That’s not funny

R24 - very well said, without being negative.

There is a lot to see and it's so spread out - but because of the car culture, I don't think you can pick up the vibe of a certain area by driving or even walking around because there aren't that many pedestrians - not like in other major cities.

But I think you really need to go to the beaches in LA to get a feel - Santa Monica, Venice (for good or bad), Malibu, etc.

Vegas is terrible.

[quote] Los Angeles might be on the list because it is so enigmatic and different to what I know. The geography makes it all the more disjointed; the outsider feels he's seeing everything having come through the back door, the service entrance

Interesting perspective. I've felt underwhelmed by LA many times but I also feel that - like Chicago and a few other cities - the most interesting aspects are in its neighborhoods. While Chicago has a core "downtown" area (Loop and Mag Mile) that can stand on its own, LA's downtown is more diffuse, I'd say, with different cultural attractions spread out a bit more.

Much of LA looks like a vast run down 1960s warehouse district.

London is no longer the city of my youth. I hated my last visit, apart from lunch and a tour of the Frieze modern art fair in Regent's Park, which has the largest collection of roses in the capital, and a Japanese waterfall. Otherwise it is dirty, soulless and there's the appalling if not horrifying public transport systems.

This list is hilarious — Las Vegas above NYC? 🤡

[quote]I've felt underwhelmed by LA many times but I also feel that - like Chicago and a few other cities - the most interesting aspects are in its neighborhoods.

Agreed, R33. It seems to me that cities fall into two or three groups: great cities all around; cities great to live in; and cities great to visit. Obviously with overlap in most cases. The way I divide them is by whether I find myself thinking, "Could I live here?"

Chicago always seemed a better place to live than to visit. Copenhagen is an extreme example of this, a slightly boring city where you can get a sense that it's virtues would be in living there, not visiting.

There are some great all around cities I return to often like London or NYC or Paris that I could live in, but I no longer have the itch to do. If I look in the windows of property agents (and I always do) it's just out of curiosity, not to start a chain of possibilities in motion. When I visit it's usually more to return to the heart of the place and see new exhibits and changes, and only incidentally to explore the more residential quarters.

For me, Los Angeles is interesting despite itself. I neither want to live there nor to visit again. And I'm hesitate to suggest it as a place for friends to visit except with a lot of caveats. Yet I think that to live there for a year would be a curious experience.

Hold off on visiting Valencia on your way to Palma.

A woman looks out from her balcony as vehicles are trapped in the street during flooding in Valencia, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. Alberto Saiz/AP

Copenhagen is boring as hell. For fun, there's a Karl Marx Museum, pretentious jazz bars, overpriced boutiques selling blankets and knitwear in drab colors, and of course the North Sea.

R39 - it's more fun than Stockholm. Swedes just have a stick up their ass - Danes are more down to earth.

How the fuck does Vegas rank about New York. No, just no.

No London?

R5 right 😆

These lists are crapola.

What about the best city to take a crap in

or

The best city to get a blow job

Singapore at number 3? The whole Crazy Rich Asians thing feels so inescapably 2010s. If I’m going to fly to the other side of the world, I’m gonna need more than hot weather and glassy-eyed Chinese bank employees eating their feelings and pretending to be Sloane Rangers.

[quote]It's a Conde Nast Traveller Readers' Choice selection, so you know it's definitive.

Bitch, please. If it has "traveller" with two Ls, it's the British edition. Pale imitation of the true Condé Nast Traveler on the floors below mine, and it explains the appallingly tacky choice of Las Vegas as America's "best" city.

r35

I was just in London. The tube was heavenly compared to nyc.

Valencia at #2? Extraordinarily poor timing.

R46, that would explain why neither London or Edinburgh made the list and the over-representation of Spain. The English are forever amazed that a place with 90 degree weather and lemon trees is a two hour direct flight away.

R35, I'm afraid R47 is correct. I spend 4-6 weeks a year total in both NYC & London. While I might've said the subway was better than the Tube 20 years ago, I would *not* do so today, and for a very simple reason: London is actually *expanding* its rail grid, all while NYC is now a literal century behind in finishing the Second Avenue Subway.

The Elizabeth line that opened two years ago is fucking ASTOUNDING. Gorgeous stations, huge platforms (each with glass doors to prevent anyone from falling, or being pushed, onto the tracks), and it takes under 20 minutes to make it from Paddington to Canary Wharf, formerly more like an hour. Even outside of the Elizabeth line, they're thoroughly renovating & expanding their main stations, including the Bank stop in the City. Finally, despite the Tube having had Oyster cards for over 20 years now, the NYC subway didn't start phasing out its now-antiquated MetroCard system for the contactless OMNY one until a few years ago.

R39, if you think Stockholm is "boring," I can only assume you didn't delve into its gay scene. HOLY SHIT are the men there stunning, at least if you're into blonds.

And yes R49, the only reason three Spanish cities are on the list is because warm weather is oddly "exotic" to the British, which may also explain their perverse interest in America's tackiest city not named Branson of Gatlinburg.

It would also explain why there are no Latin American cities on the list (far to go for hot weather and Latin culture when you have Spain and Portugal so close by). An American list would have almost certainly included Mexico City, Cartagena and Buenos Aires.

An American list would also have included Montreal, which is Canada’s best city. The British love the US (especially quintessentially “put ‘er there, partner” American places like Chicago and Vegas), but they have no interest in Canada - all cold weather and boringly prim colonials.

Brits all want to come to Florida and Texas. Unfortunately that doesn't show much for their level of taste.

R52, I live in Texas and used to live in London, and I'm truly not following your argument. Brits might want to visit Austin, but that's way down the list for most in terms of US visits. Florida's definitely popular, but California is as well despite the longer plane flight. (And Vegas is nearly as far as L.A. – both on this list when Texas is not.)

Interesting that Valencia was just punished by flash floods and Sydney by fires and economic collapse. Conde Nast readers are smoking something!

R54 is it you who has been smoking something? The eastern half of Australia including parts of Sydney was engulfed in unprecedented bushfires - nearly five years ago.

Care to give an example of Sydney’s recent economic collapse? I must have missed it?

Of course I doubt that R54 could identify Sydney or Australia on a map.

R55, why dontcha put some shrimp on the Barbie for me along with a Foster's? I know how you Austies love that stuff

So clever, R56! I don’t know why some people think that American queens are stupid, dizzy and vacuous?

You must be proud. Enjoy your pnp.

R57, I was joking. I'm not R54, and I've been to Australia several times (and am going to Hobart in February). And I know R54 is clueless AF.

Cool, R58 - it can be hard to tell on here some time.

Enjoy Hobart! Go to MONA! Drink lots of white wine especially Kreglinger.

It’s a great place. Have fun.

Students of mine just went to Istanbul last week and had to cut their visit short and be rescued by the university because of a terrorist attack. American embassy said all Americans should leave. Not sure about that one.

[quote]Brits all want to come to Florida and Texas. Unfortunately that doesn't show much for their level of taste.

Florida, yes. Texas, no.

Six year old stats but based on solid stats and the same top places hold true in more recent lists, Texas not among them.

[quote]In 2018, 28% of U.K. travelers in the U.S. visited Florida, 27% visited New York state and 17% visited California. Top cities included New York City (visited by 27%), Orlando (19%), Las Vegas (10%), Los Angeles (9%) and San Francisco (8%).

I've been to half of them and question half of those.

[quote]It's a Conde Nast Traveller Readers' Choice selection, so you know it's definitive.

Mary!