Hometown Glory
Dallas-Fort Worth takes top honors among best U.S. holiday travel destinations
With temperatures around the country finally starting to cool, many people are planning winter vacations for someplace warm. And perhaps we should expect an influx of visitors in Texas, because four Lone Star locales rank among the country's top warm-weather destinations, according to WalletHub.
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is best in Texas; it comes in at No. 9 on the list, just ahead of Austin-Round Rock at No. 10. Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land isn't too far behind at No. 12, while San Antonio-New Braunfels ranks No. 22.
WalletHub based its rankings on 26 key metrics in five different categories, including travel costs and hassles, local costs, attractions, weather conditions, and activities. The Dallas-Fort Worth area ranked highly because it came in at second for travel, seventh for local costs, 16th for attractions, and eighth for activities. Activities, we should note, includes things like number of restaurants, music venues, coffee shops, and food festivals. Yep, DFW has a few of those.
The top warm-weather U.S. destination is Las Vegas. San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Tucson round out the top five.
In case you were wondering how an area that is known to have its fair share of freezing temperatures qualifies as "warm weather," WalletHub based it on the area's December temperatures averaging out to more than 57 degrees over a 50-year period. So if it happens to dip down into the 30s or 40s or we have another Icepocalypse during peak December travel times, blame it on science, man.
