Favorite US city to wander

[Anonymous]

Does it have to be a city, OP? I can think of some places I’ve been (Bend Oregon, Sun Valley Idaho, Healdsburg, CA) that have a lot of what you’re looking for but aren’t big cities. For cities, I posted Boston earlier but I’d add Austin and, to maybe a lesser extent, Santa Fe.

[Anonymous]

Pp here - I see someone asked where to wander in Austin. DH and I went there for a long weekend after our wedding. We walked around the lake, walked down to see the bats, walked to the statehouse, and checked out a few music venues. It worked well for a 3 day weekend. We did some driving for sure but I found plenty to explore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:San Antonio

The riverwalk? All for tourists.

The Riverwalk is charming for a half an hour. After that, not much to do in San Antonio.

New poster to this thread. We walked to the Alamo, Hemisfair, and Historic Market Square from the River Walk. If you like to walk, you can walk. You can also bike to the other missions. I'd actually rather "wander" around in San Antonio than NYC. I mean I walk all over NYC, but I don't consider it wandering as such Wandering to me implies you're somewhere not super dense with some places to go but not an overwhelming number of places to go.

Also agree Philly is very walkable!

Not necessarily advocating for San Antonio, but you can spend 3 days in San Antonio and a lot of other places and feel like you've seen most everything you wanted to see even with some wandering. I've visited NYC about 10 times and there's so much more I haven't done. It really depends on what OP is looking for.

[Anonymous]

Yeah - I define wander as I can explore and find new and interesting things to see/window shop for at least a few hours. By that definition, sticking with NYC is where it's at. To a degree, you can do that in Boston/Chicago/Philly. The difference is the timeframe. I love New Orleans and Santa Fe but I'm not sure that you can wander for more than an hour in either place. There's just not enough ground to find stuff. In the neighborhoods of Chicago you could though. Again, the difference is between wandering while walking and needing to drive to different points, get out and walk for 20 mins before you have to change locations driving again. SF is like that as is LA. There's certainly neighborhoods to wander there but you can't really do it to scale. Not like you can in Venice or Paris.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is your favorite US city to wander around in foot? Looking for somewhere with good restaurants, cafes, some nightlife, cute/unique shops, reasonably safe. This is for a 3 day weekend so access to nature for a hike or something outdoorsy one day is a plus.

New York City. There’s even glamping and kayaking.

If you want to see bears while camping, just take commuter rail to Harriman State Park and keep fried chicken in your tent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:San Francisco is tops for me, followed by NYC and New Orleans.

Of these, New York is by far the safest. San Francisco is in the middle, and New Orleans is seriously dangerous.

Boston is about as safe as New York. The food there is better, but it’s more spread out; it takes longer to cross from one universe to another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:San Antonio

The riverwalk? All for tourists.

The Riverwalk is charming for a half an hour. After that, not much to do in San Antonio.

New poster to this thread. We walked to the Alamo, Hemisfair, and Historic Market Square from the River Walk. If you like to walk, you can walk. You can also bike to the other missions. I'd actually rather "wander" around in San Antonio than NYC. I mean I walk all over NYC, but I don't consider it wandering as such Wandering to me implies you're somewhere not super dense with some places to go but not an overwhelming number of places to go.

Also agree Philly is very walkable!

Not necessarily advocating for San Antonio, but you can spend 3 days in San Antonio and a lot of other places and feel like you've seen most everything you wanted to see even with some wandering. I've visited NYC about 10 times and there's so much more I haven't done. It really depends on what OP is looking for.

Of course: People from New York go to all of the places here and enjoy wandering around there, too.

But New York has so many completely different zones. Few New Yorkers know much more about most of the zones than out-of-town tourists do.

[Anonymous]

San diego

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding? You wander in Venice or Innsbruck. NYC and the Chicago neighborhoods. Def not New Orleans, Austin, San Antonio, etc. Maybe a bit in Boston and a touch in Philly. Not SF.

what? no.

--Austrian

[Anonymous]

San Francisco fits your bill best just because if you want to add a hike on Muir Woods is quite close. So you can do city and hiking pretty reasonably.

If you'd accept a Central Park hike, I'd pick NYC. It's an unbelievably easy place to wander.

[Anonymous]

Is there any place that is not really 'safe' on the island of Manhattan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah - I define wander as I can explore and find new and interesting things to see/window shop for at least a few hours. By that definition, sticking with NYC is where it's at. To a degree, you can do that in Boston/Chicago/Philly. The difference is the timeframe. I love New Orleans and Santa Fe but I'm not sure that you can wander for more than an hour in either place. There's just not enough ground to find stuff. In the neighborhoods of Chicago you could though. Again, the difference is between wandering while walking and needing to drive to different points, get out and walk for 20 mins before you have to change locations driving again. SF is like that as is LA. There's certainly neighborhoods to wander there but you can't really do it to scale. Not like you can in Venice or Paris.

You can walk San Francisco end to end. I have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah - I define wander as I can explore and find new and interesting things to see/window shop for at least a few hours. By that definition, sticking with NYC is where it's at. To a degree, you can do that in Boston/Chicago/Philly. The difference is the timeframe. I love New Orleans and Santa Fe but I'm not sure that you can wander for more than an hour in either place. There's just not enough ground to find stuff. In the neighborhoods of Chicago you could though. Again, the difference is between wandering while walking and needing to drive to different points, get out and walk for 20 mins before you have to change locations driving again. SF is like that as is LA. There's certainly neighborhoods to wander there but you can't really do it to scale. Not like you can in Venice or Paris.

You can walk San Francisco end to end. I have.

SF is amazing. There’s the city itself, but the parks are amazing, part of the city is on a beautiful beach, lots of trails near the batterys with amazing bridge, bay/ocesn and city views. Added bonus is the weather is always cool. I like NYC a lot too, but SF is tops for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:San Antonio

The riverwalk? All for tourists.

But they are a tourist

[Anonymous]

NYC
DC
Newport, RI
New Orleans
Chicago

In that order.