San Francisco is top U.S. city to visit, says Condé Nast survey

What’s your favorite city in the U.S. to visit? If you picked San Francisco, you’d be in line with Condé Nast Traveler readers who voted the City by the Bay as the No. 1 U.S. city in the publication’s 2009 Readers’ Choice Awards.

Cities were rated on these criteria: atmosphere and ambiance; culture and sites; friendliness; lodging; restaurants; and shopping. San Francisco fared especially well in — you guessed it — restaurants. But the city boasts many lures, and they are apparently consistent. This is the 17th consecutive year that it has won this category in the annual survey.

Following San Francisco in the top U.S. cities category were Charleston, S.C.; Santa Fe, N.M.; New York; and Chicago, in that order. Ubud, Indonesia, ranked as the best city to visit in Asia, and Sydney, Australia, earned the top slot of all cities internationally.

Among winners elsewhere were Maui, Kauai and Bora-Bora for favorite Pacific islands. For the category of best large resorts in the mainland U.S., four California resorts made it into the top 10: the Inn at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach (No. 2), Montage Laguna Beach (No. 3), Lodge at Pebble Beach (tied for No. 4 with the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo.), and the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel (No. 6).

The 2009 survey, available to all readers online, generated 25,008 responses. See the complete Readers’ Choice results online or in the November issue of Condé Nast Traveler (hitting newsstands Tuesday).

– Susan Derby, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Photo: For gourmet and artisinal food, head to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero in San Francisco. Credit: Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 7:10 am by Susan Derby and is filed under Asia, California, Global, Hawaii, Hotels, Islands & Beaches, News, Tips & Advice, Northern California, Orange County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.