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I'm gonna go with a three way tie between Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. LA for being Hollywood and all that entails, Chicago for its picturesque lakefront and skyline, and San Francisco for its walkable urbanism that lends itself well to tourism.
Chicago offers a great deal of that walkable urbanism too. It's just not as cohesive as SF. I don't think Chicago's great icons are as internationally recognized as SF's.
I give you that LA is not as walkable...but how is it punching below its weight? It has more museums than any other American city and only NYC is a competitor in terms of culture, diversity, and food. LA also offers great beaches, beautiful scenery and fabulous weather that brings tourists there from all over the world.
IMO, LA is so spread out that it has trouble converting its raw density, culture, diversity and food into a cohesive major world class city. LA seems like the sum of it's parts. Whereas many other urban cities are more than the sum of their parts given how they seamlessly tie vibrant neighborhoods together in a dense cluster. Obviously not everyone feels that way, but I have heard this from a lot of people.
I'd say SF, Miami, and possibly DC live up to what they're showcased as for international tourists the most.
LA can be pretty disappointing for a first-time tourists in general, especially international one's. It's not a very pretty city nor is it user friendly on the surface at all.
I'd say SF, Miami, and possibly DC live up to what they're showcased as for international tourists the most.
I get what you're saying, but for DC, I feel that the monuments are really all that draws people to the city. You're not really going to soak in DC per se, but instead the National Mall. The average tourist really comes to see about 150 acres of the city.
If we're only limited to one choice (operating under the premise that there is only one other showcase city besides NYC), then the only correct answer is Los Angeles.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Originally Posted by sav858
I'd say SF, Miami, and possibly DC live up to what they're showcased as for international tourists the most.
LA can be pretty disappointing for a first-time tourists in general, especially international one's. It's not a very pretty city nor is it user friendly on the surface at all.
You know when thinking about it, I kinda agree with this. The sentiments about LA are somewhat true, does the city have the best shopping after NY sure. Amenities probably only matched by NY as well. But the pure size of the city does not make for a very "user friendly" or tourist friendly space. The place is way too spread out, traffic is the worst on the continent, tourist destinations are not located in the downtown area, metro transit no where near the level of many of the other cities mentioned. And just like stated earlier, the city is dirty compared to the others. I'm sure the international tourists notice this. It's no landslide for LA here at all.
Many of the more geographically compact cities here with better transit options that are more accessible for their tourist population should be heavily considered, SF, DC, Bos etc.
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