What are your 5 favorite cities, plus when do you think they are at their best, and why do these cities rock in your opinion?
My top 5:
Istanbul: early autumn; best skyline in the world, great food and a great city just to just wander around, you will always see something worth seeing;
Singapore: doesn’t matter when as it is always too hot; but the food, my God the food.
Chicago: summer; like an unpretentious NYC and the Millenium Park is one of the coolest public spaces I’ve ever seen;
Tallinn, Estonia: winter; with cobblestone streets, mulled wine and a great old Europe feel;
Washington, DC: spring; the Smithsoniain is one of the greatest collections of museums in the world and they are free, free I tell you! I used to just walk into the National Gallery East, pick a painting and sit down in front of it, and just kind of hang out as long as I wanted, that’s just awesome.
Honourable mention: Budapest: spring; Tallinn and Budapest were really close calls, I included Tallinn because I have had a great night there once that just edged Budapest out of the top 5.
LA - The Greater Los Angeles metroplex is all anyone ever needs in a city. Any season, any time of day or night. LA rocks. The fall colors, when the smog chokes the leaves and they all fall off the trees. The winter landslides, when the mountains migrate to the ocean.
3.San Diego - Laid back but vibrant. The perfect smaller city. It is always summer in San Diego.
Las Vegas - because I love tacky. And neon. And the best restaurants in the country. Summer thunderstorms are awesome from a corner view room 37 floors up.
Toronto: I’m biased, and I sort of live there, so I must take it out of the running.
Helsinki: like Canada, but run by smarter people. It’s built in an area that looks exactly like Muskoka, but they’ve built a metropolitan city with excellent rail and architecture where we’d have cottages and shacks.
London: the endlessly-fascinating city of my ancestors.
San Francisco: Love love love the landscape. And the tech and art.
Burlington, VT - Good shops, waterfront, NECI
Halifax, NS - Historical, walkable
Traverse City, MI - Nice views, cherries, quiet
Montreal, QE - Good food, events
Quebec City, QE - Very historical, beautiful, cozy
The “smog” you mention hasn’t been around since the '80s. That’s the smoke from the all the brush fires you’re seeing in the Fall, when the hills turn to a lovely shade of black, in preparation for the Winter migration.
But enough grumbling about disparaging my hometown by ranking it #2…
Los Angeles - Best weather in the country. Every time I see the national weather report, I see Rain, Snow, Blizzards, Hurricanes, Tornados, and a tiny little bubble right here that’s Sunny, 72°.
Kiev - Beautiful city, very impressive sights, and compared to the rest of Ukraine, remarkably clean. Don’t go during the winter.
Seattle - I decided that this was my favorite city to visit when I was 9. The space needle was cool, the monorail was fun, and it wasn’t raining that day.
Heidelberg, Germany - Lived here six months back in college, so need to give it a plug. Beautiful, historic, and cozy.
Honolulu - This was a hard choice, since I also have fond memories of other places that I visited for a day or two, but those were a long time ago. Here I just visited a couple of years ago, and the weather was nice.
1- Paris. Live there, and have a hard time leaving it
2- Cairo: one of the most amazing cities I’ve been to. Everything overwhelming. And you can go around deep into the night without much fear.
3-San Francisco: been there when I was 6, never got back but still have the most vivid memories of it. Amazing city for a 6 year old kid.
4-London. Again, lived there, and except for the food, it was great.
5- Something Italian, but I have trouble deciding between Rome, Florence and Sienna.
