I was born and raised in Florida (with 1 year in Dallas) and always took for granted how friendly people are (in general). You’ll always hear ‘have a good one’ when purchasing something at a store. People will smile or nod when you pass them on a sidewalk. You hold the door for strangers. There’s no honking in traffic when someone waits longer than .48 seconds before driving after the light turns green. It was a bit of a cultural shock when I moved to NYC after college but it didn’t take long before I made zero eye contact on the subway and began cursing tourists for walking 3-people wide on the sidewalk at a glacial pace.
Cities can turn people into monsters, but not always. Travel + Leisure releases an annual list of America’s Friendliest Cities based on thousands of responses/votes in their ‘America’s Favorite Places’ survey. They actually release a list of the 20 friendliest cities in America but I’ve only included the top 10. You can find a link to all 20 below.
10. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
9. Fort Worth, Texas
8. Louisville, Kentucky
7. Nashville, Tennessee
6. Indianapolis, Indiana
5. San Antonio, Texas
4. New Orleans, Louisiana
3. Greenville, South Carolina
2. Norfolk, Virginia
1. Buffalo, New York
Buffalo? Really? The city famous for the ‘Bills Mafia’ is ranked as the friendliest city in America? I don’t see it/get it, but I’ll accept these results because I’ve only been to Buffalo once and it was a long time ago so I have no business judging Buffalo without knowing the city.
I’ve included Texas as part of ‘The South’ in the headline because when I Googled ‘what states are in The South?’ Texas showed up as part of the West South Central States on the top Google hit. I personally tend to think of Texas as part of the South West, and not The South, but I’m not here to make that call so I let Google do the talking for me.
Now, if you want to see #’s 20 through 11, and see if your hometown/city is on the list, you can CLICK HERE to head on over to Travel + Leisure.