Feast your eyes

3 Dallas-area cities gobble up top spots among best U.S. places for Thanksgiving

Dallas even has its own Thanks-Giving Square.

Courtesy photo

Texans still looking for the best place to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast without breaking their banks might want to head to Plano, Irving, or Dallas. The three cities rank highly on a new list of the best places to go for Thanksgiving.

The study, published by WalletHub, compares the top 100 largest U.S. cities across 20 key metrics, including the cost of Thanksgiving dinner, number of delayed flights, and even forecast precipitation.

Atlanta, Georgia ranks No. 1 on the list, with Orlando, Florida; Las Vega, Nevada; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Gilbert, Arizona rounding out the top five.

Plano ranks No. 7 on the list, while Irving and Dallas took the ninth and 13th spots, respectively. Other North Texas cities that made the list include Garland (No. 24), Arlington (No. 44), and Fort Worth, which just barely makes it into the top 100, landing at No. 84.

Other cities around Texas to make the list are:

Corpus Christi (No. 25)
Laredo (No. 31)
San Antonio (No. 32)
Austin (No. 33)
Houston (No. 53)
El Paso (No. 64)
Lubbock (No. 85)

The average American spends about $301 during the five-day Thanksgiving period, according to a list of Thanksgiving fun facts compiled by WalletHub. Annually, Americans as a whole spend an estimated $835 million on Thanksgiving turkeys, with 46 million turkeys killed for the holiday.

In addition to the cities’ overall ranking, WalletHub revealed the cities’ rankings for the individual categories they were evaluated by. Five of those categories include Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions, Affordability, Safety and Accessibility, Giving Thanks, and Thanksgiving Weather Forecast.

Surely the big Cowboys game with Jonas Brothers' halftime show factors into the DFW "celebrations and traditions" score, right?

Dallas and Irving are tied at No. 4 on the list for having the best Thanksgiving Weather Forecast (which calls for a high of 61 this year, according to WFAA).

Other Dallas rankings include:

No. 13 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 18 for Affordability
No. 93 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 37 for Giving Thanks

No. 32-ranking San Antonio has these rankings on the list:

No. 46 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 2 for Affordability
No. 66 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 85 for Giving Thanks
No. 26 for Thanksgiving Weather Forecast

The state’s No. 33-ranking capital, Austin, had an average ranking for each category:

No. 41 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 19 for Affordability
No. 42 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 82 for Giving Thanks
No. 36 for Thanksgiving Weather Forecast.

The city of Houston ranked in the top 10 for Affordability but didn’t score highly in any other category:

No. 48 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 7 for Affordability
No. 88 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 58 for Giving Thanks
No. 43 for Thanksgiving Weather Forecast.

Fort Worth was in the top 5 for weather but hit the bottom 10 for safety:

No. 87 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 31 for Affordability
No. 95 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 52 for Giving Thanks
No. 4 for Thanksgiving Weather Forecast.

You can view the full list and find more information about the 100 best U.S. places for Thanksgiving here.

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stay alert

Texas shocks as America's No. 3 least safe state in 2026 report

Photo by Hiroshi Kimura on Unsplash

Texas ranks as the 48th "safest" state — out of 50.

While no state is invulnerable, some do more to protect their residents than others. And a new study has declared Texas one of the five least safe states in America.

WalletHub's "Safest States in America (2026)" report examined all 50 states for their emergency preparedness and for residents' personal and residential, financial, workplace, and road safety. Factors that weighed into the rankings include specific crime rates per capita, the share of the population that is uninsured, road quality ratings, workplace injury statistics, and more.

Texas ranked at the bottom of the list as the 48th "safest" state — or the third least safe state. It's joined by several other Southern states, like Mississippi (No. 50), Louisiana (No. 49), Florida (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46).

According to WalletHub, Texas specifically ranks third to last in the nationwide "emergency preparedness" category, which was determined based on the prevalence of climate disasters causing $1 billion or more in damages from 1980-2024, and the loss amount resulting from those disasters.

The Lone Star State also ranked 40th (or 10th worst) across three safety categories: personal and residential safety, financial safety, and road safety. The report additionally found that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents nationally.

Texas' "workplace safety" was the state's highest-ranking category, landing 30th nationally.

Additional rankings that determined Texas' overall safety include:

No. 30 – Assaults per capita
No. 32 – Fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 full-time workers
No. 32 – Sex offenders per capita
No. 35 – Murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita
No. 36 – Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel
No. 41 – Loss amounts from climate disasters per capita

According to the report, the five safest states in America are all located in the Northeast. Vermont leads as the country's safest state in 2026, followed by Massachusetts (No. 2), Maine (No. 3), New Hampshire (No. 4), and Connecticut (No. 5).

Though every state has varying levels of safety, WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo asserted that the safest places in the U.S. categorically invest in protecting their residents. Top-ranking states have low crime rates and diligently maintain their road infrastructure, and other states that prioritize their residents' safety have "strong economies and job markets that prevent people from falling into dangerous financial situations."

"[The safest states in America] have high levels of occupational safety and disaster preparedness, too," Lupo said. "In addition, states are made safer by efforts that individual residents take, such as forming a neighborhood watch or working in firefighting and EMT jobs at high rates."

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