2021’s Best Summer Travel Destinations
WalletHub releases its tops picks for the best post-Covid summer vacations!
With the COVID-19 vaccine available to all Americans and the number of daily travelers passing through TSA checkpoints over 10 times higher than last year, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2021’s Best Summer Travel Destinations, as well as accompanying videos, 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 42 key indicators from budget to fun and friendliness. The data set ranges from the cost of the cheapest flight to the number of attractions to COVID-19 cases.
Top 20 Summer Travel Destinations
1. Orlando, FL
2. Honolulu, HI
3. New Orleans, LA
4. Austin, TX
5. Atlanta, GA
6. Salt Lake City, UT
7. Tulsa, OK
8. Los Angeles, CA
9. Oklahoma City, OK
10. Little Rock, AR
11. Washington, DC
12. Springfield, MO
13. San Antonio, TX
14. Wichita, KS
15. Tampa, FL
16. Tucson, AZ
17. Miami, FL
18. Riverside, CA
19. Albuquerque, NM
20. Raleigh, NC
Best vs. Worst
- The average flight to a popular summer destination costs $293.73, lasts 3 hours and 44 minutes, and has 0.3 connections.
- The Los Angeles metro area is the most attractive destination on the West Coast and the Atlanta metro area is the most attractive destination on the East Coast.
- Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas are home to the most top summer destinations in the U.S., each with two metro areas in the top 15. Oppositely, Michigan and Pennsylvania have the largest numbers of the most unpopular summer destinations, each with two metro areas.
- The Orlando metro area has the lowest nightly rate for a three-star hotel room, $32, which is 4.9 times less expensive than in Santa Rosa, the metro area with the highest at $157.
