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2018's Best Summer Travel Destinations

With summer approaching, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2018's Best Summer Travel Destinations to supplement its Best Travel Credit Cards and Currency Exchange studies.

To help travelers plan the perfect summer getaway, WalletHub compared 100 metro areas across 40 key indicators of budget- and fun-friendliness. The data set ranges from cost of the cheapest flight to number of attractions to average price of a two-person meal.

Top 20 Summer Travel Destinations

  1. Washington, DC
  2. Orlando, FL
  3. Austin, TX
  4. Chicago, IL
  5. Atlanta, GA
  6. Cincinnati, OH
  7. Dallas, TX
  8. Oklahoma City, OK
  9. Las Vegas, NV
  10. Houston, TX
  11. New York, NY
  12. Los Angeles, CA
  13. Tampa, FL
  14. St. Louis, MO
  15. Salt Lake City, UT
  16. Richmond, VA
  17. San Antonio, TX
  18. Philadelphia, PA
  19. Knoxville, TN
  20. Pittsburgh, PA

Best vs. Worst

  • The average flight to a popular summer destination costs $319, lasts 3 hours and 57 minutes and has 0.4 connections.
  • The Las Vegas metro area is the most attractive destination on the West Coast and the Washington D.C. metro area on the East Coast.
  • Florida and Texas are home to the top summer destinations in the U.S., each with at least two metro areas in the top 15. Oppositely,   Pennsylvania has one of the largest number of most unpopular summer destinations.
  • The Oklahoma metro area has the lowest nightly rate for a three-star hotel room, $43, which is five times less expensive than in New Orleans, the metro area with the highest at $214.

To view the full report and your city’s rank, please click here.