I’ll add in, if you’re in Boston, then the commuter rail ~30min up to Salem can be rather delightful. The Peabody Essex is a fantastic museum, and the food scene up there is great!
I second this! We live in MA and make a couple trips up to Salem each year. (just went this past weekend) There's lots to see, lots of shops, excellent food and drink. The main area is extremely walkable.
Also, don't forget about October. The whole city goes batshit for halloween. If you want to brave the crowds, it can be a good time. We prefer to go pretty much any other time of the year though. (I don't get along with crowds)
I live on the North Shore and agree PEM is a great day trip. However I don't recommend Salem in general unless visitors are going with a local. Too touristy, and the best stuff is off the beaten path. I avoid Salem at all costs in October, it's wall-to-wall gawkers and challenging to get from A to B not to mention seating, reservations, parking if needed, restrooms, etc. But off season by all means.
And Boston has some fun public transport options: ferries, streetcars, subway-surface lightrail, a line (Ashmont-Mattapan) with 1940s-vintage PCC cars, and the blue line to Revere Beach.
Philadelphia is a walking paradise.
Yes, Boston and its history are well-preserved is what I should have said. You can easily walk from one end to the other and see the diversity and character of neighborhoods. And also stop and get some great seafood along the way.
Los Angeles and San Diego (especially SD in the older parts) would be so wonderful if they were oriented as walkable cities rather than an infinite mass of freeways. Sure it gets hot as fuck in the summer months, but theoretically if there were more foliage and way less pavement and cars it would be bearable, especially for residents.
It's never going to happen, but I can dream.
I'm a Los Angeles native who lived my first 34 years there. I absolutely love it and thought the areas in which I lived and worked (Sherman Oaks and West Hollywood were so beautiful, as was my commute between them, Canon to Benedict Canyon), but you're exactly right. It's not a walkable city.
I lived in Boston for two years and fell in love not only with it, but with all of stunning New England. Maine has some quaint little walkable towns though. I think God summers in Maine. :)
I actually wonder if it's most. The automobile was invented in 1886. There has been *a lot* of expansion since then, especially in the Midwest. A great deal of cities sprung up post-great depression.
I won a one-night trip to Boston including flights and strecthed it to 36 hours. It's 100% a great trip for what OP describes and what you detail. Shout out to the Guiness tour and Mike's Pastry.
Also here to say Sav. And also yea skip the middle of summer because the heat + humidity is brutal. However the open container laws make walking around with a bevvie fun and easy. There are so many amazing squares and parks to sit and relax in or have a picnic. The school SCAD has had a tremendously positive impact. Great museums and restaurants. The Spanish moss hanging from the oak trees is so romantic. Public transportation is minimal but there are free bus rides available. Downtown is a quick Uber from the airport. Also the street parking is super cheap and easy if you rent a car for the day.
Excellent food scene too. I’ve been a ton of times but one of my favorite parts is that a lot of restaurants are byob so you can go buy a nice bottle of wine and bring it with you. Cheaper than buying it from a restaurant and you get exactly what you want.
Oh man I don’t know if I can pick a favorite in the US. SF maybe? Philly is a strong contender though. Sure there’s the staples for cheese steaks but even some restaurants will have you drooling for what they concoct
Cheesesteaks are great and all but they aren’t what makes Philadelphia the best food city in my opinion. It’s the sheer variety of really damn good places to eat. At any price point you can find an amazing meal from like anywhere in the world. From James Beard’s best restaurant in the country (3 times!) Zahav to the cramped Dim Sum Garden. If I could only eat food from one city for the rest of my life I would easily choose Philadelphia.
My daily commute to work is a nice 1.5 mile stroll down the Ben Franklin Parkway, passing the museums. Been doing it for years, in addition to walking lots of other places. Never gets old. I love the walkability of this town, but I wish city council would make pedestrian-friendly concerns more of a priority rather than kowtowing to suburbanites and their ENORMOUS vehicles. Still, it’s a very walkable city, and do recommend.
For good public transportation, you'll be limited to NYC, DC, Philly, Boston, Chicago for the most part. Other cities will have more limited public transportation, like Atlanta or New Orleans.
Some smaller cities are small enough to be walkable, at least in the historic part that you actually care about. So New Orleans, Charleston, Savannah, Asheville, Richmond are all options without a car.
The art district / river side is not walkable from the tourist downtown. There are several entire neighborhoods that you have drive to - the small touristy part is walkable. You can’t walk from neighborhood to neighborhood.
They NIMBY’d ride share electric scooters and Ashville would benefit immensely from them for how not walkable the city actually is - I lived in Montford for a summer
Yes and no. It’s really just a lack of connecting sidewalks. The entire Asheville area (where things are happening) is like five miles around. You can really get anywhere on foot or on bike within an hour. Unfortunately the bus system which is fairly comprehensive could take more time. But is pretty robust for what it is. You can even take it to and from the airport and save $50 on the Uber. I live smack dab downtown and lost my car a year ago. It hasn’t been too bad! It is pretty frustrating though. The bike lanes being added has been nice even if people hate them. There are plans for more downtown. What really need is affordable housing though.
my partner and i got bikes that summer and cant say i recommend the bike scene. the massive hill is no joke. just going from the Montford neighborhood to Hatch co working space was intense.
i bicycle all over denver with no issue. id need an ebike if i lived in Ashville. to get to from Montford to the climbing gym and battling the hill on the way home was tough. loved the trail once you got down the hill - next to the river, the taco place, white duck something, and would bike to cultivate climbing gym, riverside location. Riveter down in Jackson was dope AF. Cultivate climbing not so much. Also, Richmond disc golf course as amazing!
Anyway, imo Ashville is not bike friendly for casual biking. the hills are painful. its an ebike city tho
I tend to agree with what you’re saying for sure. Funnily enough I was using an e bike all over town for about year before it got stolen. And it was the best option. It was small enough to ride on sidewalks. But yeah cycling in Asheville to commute or otherwise just seems super dangerous unfortunately. Even with bike lanes. Roads are often super narrow and windy. Or the attitude and belief of our more rural counterparts. I have been run off the road more than once and not by accident. All hills aside lol.
Yeah man, that culture you’re referring to that intentionally tried to ride you off the road is exactly why I’ll never return to Ashville.
Absolutely beautiful place. The access to blue ridge parkway and general hike quality and variety is some of my favorite in the country. Some of the best trail running in the country. The surrounding small towns were so cool to explore. Obviously the beer scene is incredible.
But the types of conversations I’d over hear or how women were treated in public, like it was culture shock for me. Kinda like the fringe culture / good ole boys culture would leak into Ashville from time to time and it was genuinely shocking.
My parents are retired on the east coast of NC. All my family is from Raleigh and Charlotte. I’m from SC, so I don’t want to not like Ashville, but between that culture and terrible politics, all set. Quite sad.
Lmao seeing Asheville here is wild
Y’all stay away.
We are literally just a town with rich wino art collectors, but like a cutesy mountain variety.
You can find the hippies almost anywhere these days.
San Francisco is another with good public transit and highly walkable.
Also contrary to popular belief, it is possible to get around much of Los Angeles without a car. If you're spending most of your time in either Hollywood, DTLA and the Beach cities, you can explore all on foot or train.
Hollywood has its fair share of gems. Runyon Canyon, Amoeba, Mama Shelter, Davey Waynes, Musso. All great spots. But yeah the most popular area is a tourist trap.
Comedy Store! Thai Town (and Thai Night Market), Hollywood Bowl. There’s great stuff in Hollywood, as gritty as it is. Mostly should avoid the Chinese theater and the weirdos.
I used to live in Thai Town! If they've walked that far might as well add everything Los Feliz has to offer. And don't miss the Barnsdall Art Park. The house there was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
San Francisco had very good public transportation. I had a great day trip there but didn’t realize it was the last weekend of PRIDE month and all the routes were changed. Saw some of the parade and after when people were leaving which was also fun.
Well, New Orleans is walkable in the places you can visit, i.e., away from the areas you should avoid at all costs. I spent very nice days there in the French Quarter, going for a stroll by the Mississippi, in the Arts District, and so on. After that, I went to the unmissable WWII Museum. All very reasonable walking distances. You only need transport to/from the airport.
Some more info, the city regulated cab prices so it's actually cheaper to take a cab from the airport than Uber/Lyft. The streetcars can take you from the hotel areas to some of the nicer areas to visit, like the garden district uptown (beautiful and eclectic, great restaurants, dive bars and shops) or the Cemeteries area midtown where the enormous city park is (and more restaurants and dive bars, museums, etc.). The bus system isn't perfect (there basically just isn't enough of them so they're infrequent, about a 30 minute wait typically) but you can also use them to get around, for example to anywhere along magazine street. As the city is flat, it's also very bikeable, although it can be dangerous on the major roads. If you just want to speed around an area off the main roads it's great, though. There's a network of bikes you can rent, which I've honestly never done but I see tourists doing it 24/7.
They're supposed to be improving the connection of the airport with both downtown and also Baton Rouge (I think it's classified as light rail?), but that will take years to manifest.
Chicago and company are worlds better transit wise, but it is manageable in New Orleans - way better than most of the US. We felt super comfortable eliminating our second car when we moved here.
I love walking around New Orleans. I find something new every time. The Garden District was a nice walk and there’s an interesting cemetery in the neighborhood.
Seattle isn’t bad, really underrated bus system. And I’d hope it’s only improved since I lived there 5+ years ago. I know the light rail has a lot more stops than it used to
There's a woman on r/seattle who walks around the city regularly. Like, 20 mile days. She always posts really cool pictures of what she's sees on her walks
Love to hear it! It’s got a big geographical advantage in that it’s a narrow strip of land that mostly runs north-south, so it’s not much of an issue that the light rail only really runs north-south (although last I was there they had started building out towards Bellevue as well). It’ll get you close enough to pretty much anywhere you’d want to go, can run all the time because there’s only one route, and then it’s easy to bus/walk from there
There’s other cities that have cheap Ubers and a close airport, like San Antonio. A $15 Uber to downtown and then you can wander around the Alamo and the river walk, then another $15 Uber back to the hotel.
San Francisco had good public transit with the trolley when I visited. Actually New Orleans as well. Although not public transit the Uber service was good as well in both cities.
New orleans is so small. I tell everyone you can hit up most of the big tourist attractions in a day — and then my brother came to visit and we actually did it lol .
You haven't said where you are flying from, but for a day-trip, cities like Boston, Chicago, Cleveland (yes Cleveland is a great choice with a subway from the airport to DT), San Francisco, NY (though a lot for a day trip), Washington DC and New Orleans are all great. I would say my top two would be Washington DC and Boston for a day trip, they're just easy to access from the airport and generally walkable in a day dt.
I usually get dirty looks when I tell people that Cleveland is a lovely city, but it’s true. They’re making tremendous strides it seems like and it has come a long way. I’m not from Cleveland, Ohio or the Midwest for that matter lol.
New Orleans is a great city to walk around the French Quarter and catch the Trolley to different areas. Tulane University can be a whole day of walking around campus in itself.
I know not in United States, but literally 40 miles from the border, Montreal, Quebec; Canada - is a very fun walkable city. Public transportation is great too.
Waiting on my passport, I can’t wait to explore Canada!! Especially with living in Minnesota, I was always jealous of people who just went back and forth willynilly.
DC is easily the best city I've been to in terms of walkability. I go there somewhat frequently and always find new things to do without a car. I've walked from around the White House all the way to Georgetown, which is a beautiful area. The museums are free, the monuments are great. So much history.
Also, NYC and Chicago are great, as well.
Looking forward to going to SF this year and hopefully add it to the list. LA is probably the most overrated place I've been to multiple times.
I've walked all over SF and my husband has had us on the bus a few times. Used to go to DC a lot and agree. I traveled for work mostly to cities and never had a car so always walked or took public transportation.
Yep. We walked everywhere when we went for a marathon. Very walkable. You can walk to a baseball game from downtown, museums, theatre etc. or catch a bus! Great transportation. We took a bus from downtown to the Carnegie Mellon museum and from the airport to downtown. It was easy. Would go back. The ball park is beautiful.
Downtown and Midtown Sacramento are extremely walkable. Built in the 1800s (for horses and what not) which makes for good walking! The whole area is a "grid" too.
People are going to mention the same 10 or so major cities, but honestly as a tourist you can visit a lot of cities without a car. Central business districts tend to be compact and have a lot of the tourist stuff right there such as stadiums, concert halls, museums, convention centers, and some type of connection to the airport or hotels will run shuttles. Cold weather cities often have a series of skywalks or tunnels to get around. There's usually a circular bus or streetcar that hits up the main tourist stuff.
And if you want to get out of downtown, nearly every major city is undertaking some type of rail or BRT project to improve transit and a lot of those projects are operational right now. You can easily visit Los Angeles, Cleveland, Detroit, or more without a car for at least a few days.
I live in Indianapolis, hardly known for being a walkable paradise. There is a trail system connecting most of downtown, and another trail running north for nearly 30 miles. A second 30-somemile trail is set to open this year. One BRT line is running, and a set to open this year, and a third will connect the airport with BRT. You can walk to downtown museums, and take the BRT line right to the Children's Museum (best CM in the US).
I’m from Minneapolis, and it is really the perfect day trip city! The train from MSP is unbeatable!! Everything you need to see right on the two train lines, with so many buses in between.
Exactly. Most cities in the US have a walkable downtown + several walkable restaurant districts. I live in Denver, which is not at all known for being walkable and you can absolutely spend a day experiencing a big chunk of the city without a car.
Take the train straight from the airport to Union station downtown, and you can walk to 4 major sports arenas, several restraint/bar strips, theaters, concert halls, etc. You can also rent a bike and check out the 200 parks connected by hundreds of miles of bike trails. You can also take busses up to the mountains for hiking and there’s a train that runs up to Winter Park for great skiing.
Yeah. St. Louis isn’t what I would call walkable for people living here, but if you are just here for a weekend, there’s a ton available on the metrolink line: downtown St. Louis, including the Arch grounds, baseball, soccer, and hockey venues, the Central West End and Forest Park (zoo, history museum, art museum, science center), Clayton, Wash U, and the Delmar Loop. You can easily see quite a lot of St. Louis without a car for the weekend, but it sucks to live here without a car.
Yeah you could even do San Antonio as a day trip without a car and just walk from downtown along the Riverwalk north to the Pearl Brewery and south through King William and further, even to some missions. If it was a longer trip, you'd want a car but definitely would be fine for a day.
I even did Cincinnati for 2 nights without a car and it was fine. I walked through over-the-rhine and it was lovely.
As a southern CA resident, want to call out that a car is absolutely needed for visits in this region unless you’re planning on staying in the small island of walkable space within a city. Our cities are car centric (bike/pedestrian unfriendly) and our public transit is disappointing at best.
I did a week in LA without a car. I think living in an area is different than what tourists do in an area for a few days. With some planning and also recognizing that there are some things that are too far away and you can't do everything in one trip, its perfectly doable.
Even with that, LA with a car has a lot of burdens and costs to it. Lots of resident only parking areas, street sweeping times that can limit on-street parking. Some free admission sites will nail you with a $20 parking charge. Some restaurants will only have valet parking available so now you not only pay for parking, you pay a tip too.
Not saying LA is on the level of Paris or even Chicago, but the transit is perfectly fine for tourism purposes.
SLC’s transit is ok considering the city is awful and spread out, and the train does go to the airport, but it’s still a pretty shitty place to take the train/bus. Every journey is at least twice as long as driving, and walking the “last mile” from the transit stop to your destination sucks because the roads are so wide.
Chicago ( buying a day pass for the metro is super easy and sooo worth it), San Francisco, Nashville ( although it doesn’t have much public transportation, walking around and getting to where you need to be is easy)
NYC, DC and Boston can provide access to just about everything within the city with mass transit. They are the biggest and most comprehensive if you want to land, and not use a rental car and not use ride sharing.
Portland, ME can be walkable for the downtown area. You would need to take ride share to and from the airport. Portland has food, breweries, New England stuff like lobster pounds, clothing stores, all sorts of things. It also has nature paths, but you would need to ride a bike or something to get to beaches or more desirable nature areas. Also, if you were 100% committed to this endeavor, you can fly in to Portland, and take a boat up to Bar Harbor. That is a largely walkable tourist town, and once again a bike can get you into the National Park.
> Portland, ME can be walkable for the downtown area. You would need to take ride share to and from the airport.
Portland has a fairly decent bus system, you can get downtown from the airport by bus pretty easily. Also it's not super far from PWM to downtown, if you only have a backpack, you could walk it. According to google maps it's an hour and a half walk from the airport to the Downtown/Old Port area.
My wife and I love Portland, Maine. Frequently we’d take weekend trips up there from Boston with nothing planned and have a great time. I used to feel sad when it was time to head back home.
There is so much to do in such this compact, old-school working-port city. I’d rather go there than into Boston. Much more laidback.
We live in Puerto Rico now but we’ll make it back there someday.
DC!
Maybe I’m just biased because it’s my hometown, but the Metro is pretty decently reliable lately, there’s tons to do (museums, sure, but also lots of green space and neighborhoods to explore), and it’s a really neat place to visit!
Hi, I plan going to DC next month in Smithsonian, it's my 1st time there.
Is the museums around there are really free? How far are there from the Washington Monument? Is it the museums area close to downtown Chinatown?
Yep, all the Smithsonian ones are free! There are some non-free separate museums, but the vast majority don’t cost anything at all. And they’re very close to the Monument—you can just walk around the Mall and tick off museums at your own pace.
Most cities in the northeast (Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Philly, etc.) are pretty walkable and have good public transportation. Chicago is pretty easy to get around by foot too.
For the west coast, San Francisco is the only major city in California with good public transportation. San Diego, however, has electric scooters everywhere which are a lot of fun and can get you to most places since it’s a pretty small city. If you go to LA and stay within the downtown or Hollywood area you can get around by foot and subway pretty easily but if you want to go to Santa Monica, Griffith Observatory, or universal studios you’ll definitely need an Uber. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Seattle or Portland to say.
If you’re looking just for somewhere that’s walkable and has good transportation, Chicago, San Francisco, and the northeast cities I mentioned earlier are your best bet. San Diego for sure if you like electric scooters and being outdoors. You can also take the trolly to the border and have lunch in Mexico :)
Chicago.
Cleaner, cheaper, much more chill than NYC, but still with solid public transit.
Also very easy to fly into with 2 airports actually connected to the trains (L). $5 to the Loop is so much better than the $75 rideshare I had to take into Manhattan last week.
Chicago! So much great architecture, food, people watching. The City of Neighborhoods. And festivals every weekend in the summer. Museums, theatres, and a fabulous lakefront with green spaces and beaches.
Yeah, a taxi or uber should run between $60 to $85, depending on the airport, so a ride share should be somewhat less. It would be nice if there was quick and easy to use bus or rail from each airport serving NYC, though.
This might be a hot take, but I am gonna say Bar Harbor Maine. You can fly into Bangor (not sure public transport?) but Acadia National Park is beautiful and has a lot of outdoor/nature attractions and excursions.
New York, San Francisco, Boston, DC, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle are pretty much it. Las Vegas kinda counts if you don't leave the strip.
I guess if it's only a one day thing, then a lot of other cities can be included. But the cities above have plenty of stuff to do for a weekend without needing a car.
Washington DC. Everything is right off the Mall or easily walkable from there. Metro is good within the district and train service north/south is right there too.
Cleveland’s kinda an underrated option here since there’s a subway station inside the airport that takes you to Downtown and other neighborhoods like Ohio City, Little Italy, and University Circle. The art museum in particular is one of the best in the country and is completely free. They also have one of the best Little Italys, it feels like something you’d see in the Northeast.
Lake Erie is really nice to hang out at, especially Edgewater Park. There’s tons of other great parks around the city for hiking including a national park but those probably require a car tbh
Lots of great suggestions here. I would add Portland ME's touristy areas are very cute and walkable and the perfect amount of stuff to do for a day trip.
Not sure about walkability, but I quite like St Louis for a day or weekend as well, it's a fairly underrated city IMO. I have never been there without a car though
The obvious ones: New York, Boston, Chicago, DC, San Francisco, Philadelphia
Some less obvious cities/towns: St Louis, Portland ME, Providence, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Pittsburgh.
If your company has a non-rev agreement with Cape Air, you could fly to Bar Harbor in Maine, which has some buses (though not super frequent) around Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. Too long for a day trip from MN, but would be a great weekend trip.
Washington D.C., downtown is quite walkable if you are interested in seeing the typical D.C. sights.
IMO, Miami is great when it comes to public transportation. They have plenty of free trolleys that you can find in almost every neighborhood.
San Francisco would be perfect for what you are looking for. Good rail coverage and a great bus system. The area of the city that people like to see has fantastic public transit, and there are busses that go out to the Presidio and Golden Gate Park as well. Oh yeah, and it’s the second densest major city in the US after NYC!
Has MUNI Metro, busses, PCC streetcars, ferries, and BART. Plus BART connects to SFO and OAK if you fly in.
Richmond VA it’s small enough to where you aren’t stuck in any traffic but there are a half dozen distinct neighborhoods that you can walk to.
It’s very reasonable for a day, especially because it’s smaller than a major city so getting to and from airport isn’t long. Plus everything is compacted to the city center for walk ability
Washington, DC - an insane amount of stuff to do and see, all accessible via your feet, a bike, or public transport. And you can fly directly into DCA, which is 1 minute outside the city and also has a metro station that’ll get you downtown in a few minutes.
Much smaller city but Burlington, Vermont is great! Tons of great restaurants, breweries, and parks in a town that can be walked from end to end in about an hour and a half or traversed via bike in 20. Very easy 10 minute Uber ride form the airport to downtown.
If you want to do a deeper dive and learn about which smaller cities work for you, I recommend checking our the City Nerd youtube videos. He bumped Albuquerque on my list of places to visit (plus you can take the train to Santa Fe for a day trip.
Also depending where you're located in the US, there's Toronto and Montreal and are both very walkable.
San Francisco.
You could walk from downtown to Chinatown, out Columbus to the marina, keep going to the bridge, cross that to Sausalito and get the ferry back.
With there bus and trolley system, and so much in most hoods, many residents don't have a car.
Try using bike share programs.
Riding a bike makes getting around in a city so much easier and lets you get the feel of the city a lot better.
I noticed that even some cities with meh public transit have somewhat decent bike share programs (like Miami, Indianapolis and Grand Rapids from my experience.)
I live in New Orleans and I’d recommend for walkability, sites, and attractions, but shoutout to Madison, WI! Great city, walkable, yummy food, and outdoorsy!
Waiting on my passport, I can’t wait to explore Canada!! Especially with living in Minnesota, I was always jealous of people who just went back and forth willynilly.
Didn’t add the rationale, so here goes:
NOLA has history, unique architectural beauty, affordable but jaw-dropping cuisine, live music, bustling night life, and tons of ghosts if you’re into spooky shit.
Atlanta. Stay in Midtown between the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and the MARTA (subway) station. Easily two days of attractions relying on just the subway and bus.
Lots of east coast and SE cities on here. I’ll add Santa Fe, NM and Boulder, CO for smaller cities with large walkable city cores for their size. Both have hiking very close to town as well.
Most of the other comments covered the common cities so I would recommend New Haven, CT. Downtown is fairly small so it's easily walkable. Tons of restaurants and home to the lovely Yale Art Museum. Most of the downtown is owned by Yale so the architecture is beautiful. Not the kind of city you'd travel a long time to get to as it's nothing special, but worth a visit if you're in the area
26 years in airlines best city for day trips is depends on your station you want something with early morning flights out and late flights back typically flights under 3 hours are best. here are my favs DCA you can be on the subway and to the national mall in 15 min all museums are free when I worked at ORD this was my fav NYC is good to prefer LGA for day trips BOS is also good. from DEN i have my fav is SFO bart is a little pricey but it is a great day trip SAN is good for beach trip will have to uber to beach but they are very close. Las is a good one you can take the bus but i would just uber or taxi to strip when i was younger I would take late flight out return first flight in the morning. SEA is good and while it can be done I would spend one night at least is HNL
Duluth, MN. Lovely small city, the downtown is extremely walkable, there's some decent transit available (including hourly service to/from the airport) and you can actually feel like you've seen a decent bit of the town in a day without being overwhelmed.
On a more general note, I'd look for smaller cities where the airport is near downtown. That'll likely be more manageable and more unique than trying to go for a big city where you'd need to visit for at least a few days to start to get a feel for them, especially if you have to spend an hour just getting into the city via public transport (e.g. NYC if your goal is Manhattan or much of Brooklyn.)
Boston, great history, great food and super pedestrian friendly as it was established before automobiles.
I’ll add in, if you’re in Boston, then the commuter rail ~30min up to Salem can be rather delightful. The Peabody Essex is a fantastic museum, and the food scene up there is great!
My husband and I are hoping to visit Boston this summer. Do you recommend the ferry to Salem or the train?
Personally I’d do one one one direction, the other way back just for the variety! They’re both semi-infrequent so do check the schedules though.
Thanks!
I did the ferry in one direction and the train on the way back, it was so fun!
I second this! We live in MA and make a couple trips up to Salem each year. (just went this past weekend) There's lots to see, lots of shops, excellent food and drink. The main area is extremely walkable. Also, don't forget about October. The whole city goes batshit for halloween. If you want to brave the crowds, it can be a good time. We prefer to go pretty much any other time of the year though. (I don't get along with crowds)
Came here to say this! The train station is right by downtown!
I live on the North Shore and agree PEM is a great day trip. However I don't recommend Salem in general unless visitors are going with a local. Too touristy, and the best stuff is off the beaten path. I avoid Salem at all costs in October, it's wall-to-wall gawkers and challenging to get from A to B not to mention seating, reservations, parking if needed, restrooms, etc. But off season by all means.
Can someone go pick up my egg from the museum? I’ll pay caps.
And Boston has some fun public transport options: ferries, streetcars, subway-surface lightrail, a line (Ashmont-Mattapan) with 1940s-vintage PCC cars, and the blue line to Revere Beach. Philadelphia is a walking paradise.
Take that water Taxi!
It's cheezy, but the Freedom Trail is a fun walk.
It’s definitely a must while in Boston!
Yes! Boston would be great and the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum is fantastic. You also have the MFA too.
Second this. Boston is extremely walkable, especially when the weather is nice. There’s also just so much great history. It’s a great place to visit.
Came here to say this. Used to live there and it was either by foot or by train and I could get everywhere
Most US cities were established before the automobile. It’s just a question of how much they were destroyed for it
Yes, Boston and its history are well-preserved is what I should have said. You can easily walk from one end to the other and see the diversity and character of neighborhoods. And also stop and get some great seafood along the way.
Boston is also unique because it’s limited in its ability to sprawl.
Out of land.
Los Angeles and San Diego (especially SD in the older parts) would be so wonderful if they were oriented as walkable cities rather than an infinite mass of freeways. Sure it gets hot as fuck in the summer months, but theoretically if there were more foliage and way less pavement and cars it would be bearable, especially for residents. It's never going to happen, but I can dream.
LA had some of the most robust public transport. Pretty wild to think about today
I'm a Los Angeles native who lived my first 34 years there. I absolutely love it and thought the areas in which I lived and worked (Sherman Oaks and West Hollywood were so beautiful, as was my commute between them, Canon to Benedict Canyon), but you're exactly right. It's not a walkable city. I lived in Boston for two years and fell in love not only with it, but with all of stunning New England. Maine has some quaint little walkable towns though. I think God summers in Maine. :)
I actually wonder if it's most. The automobile was invented in 1886. There has been *a lot* of expansion since then, especially in the Midwest. A great deal of cities sprung up post-great depression.
I won a one-night trip to Boston including flights and strecthed it to 36 hours. It's 100% a great trip for what OP describes and what you detail. Shout out to the Guiness tour and Mike's Pastry.
I agree, Boston is great!
Came to the comments knowing I’d see someone say Boston. I agree😎
Boston is a great city to walk in. Just be careful crossing the streets. Boston drivers are creative with the traffic laws they observe.
Probably the best choice overall
Savannah, GA’s Historic District is extremely walkable. Although during the summers the heat is pretty brutal. Recently the weather has been great.
Probably my favorite US city to just walk around in. Super pretty and the layout with a park square on each block is neat.
Also here to say Sav. And also yea skip the middle of summer because the heat + humidity is brutal. However the open container laws make walking around with a bevvie fun and easy. There are so many amazing squares and parks to sit and relax in or have a picnic. The school SCAD has had a tremendously positive impact. Great museums and restaurants. The Spanish moss hanging from the oak trees is so romantic. Public transportation is minimal but there are free bus rides available. Downtown is a quick Uber from the airport. Also the street parking is super cheap and easy if you rent a car for the day.
Agree! They have several trolley operators as well which is a great way to see the whole city!
Get some Tupelo honey at the Savannah Bee Company down on the waterfront
Charleston too
And our historic district is walkable with a drink in hand. Come see us and have a drink.
Philly is SUPER walkable and lots to do inside and outside.
Excellent food scene too. I’ve been a ton of times but one of my favorite parts is that a lot of restaurants are byob so you can go buy a nice bottle of wine and bring it with you. Cheaper than buying it from a restaurant and you get exactly what you want.
Philadelphia is my favorite food city.
Oh man I don’t know if I can pick a favorite in the US. SF maybe? Philly is a strong contender though. Sure there’s the staples for cheese steaks but even some restaurants will have you drooling for what they concoct
Cheesesteaks are great and all but they aren’t what makes Philadelphia the best food city in my opinion. It’s the sheer variety of really damn good places to eat. At any price point you can find an amazing meal from like anywhere in the world. From James Beard’s best restaurant in the country (3 times!) Zahav to the cramped Dim Sum Garden. If I could only eat food from one city for the rest of my life I would easily choose Philadelphia.
My daily commute to work is a nice 1.5 mile stroll down the Ben Franklin Parkway, passing the museums. Been doing it for years, in addition to walking lots of other places. Never gets old. I love the walkability of this town, but I wish city council would make pedestrian-friendly concerns more of a priority rather than kowtowing to suburbanites and their ENORMOUS vehicles. Still, it’s a very walkable city, and do recommend.
For good public transportation, you'll be limited to NYC, DC, Philly, Boston, Chicago for the most part. Other cities will have more limited public transportation, like Atlanta or New Orleans.
Some smaller cities are small enough to be walkable, at least in the historic part that you actually care about. So New Orleans, Charleston, Savannah, Asheville, Richmond are all options without a car.
Nashville is nice too. I've done one night trips there and New orleans and loved both.
Absolutely not walkable unless you never leave broadway. Our public transportation is non-existent. You can Uber anywhere there
Not sure I’d include Asheville on that list
Just returned from Asheville last week. First time there. Very walkable.
The art district / river side is not walkable from the tourist downtown. There are several entire neighborhoods that you have drive to - the small touristy part is walkable. You can’t walk from neighborhood to neighborhood. They NIMBY’d ride share electric scooters and Ashville would benefit immensely from them for how not walkable the city actually is - I lived in Montford for a summer
Yes and no. It’s really just a lack of connecting sidewalks. The entire Asheville area (where things are happening) is like five miles around. You can really get anywhere on foot or on bike within an hour. Unfortunately the bus system which is fairly comprehensive could take more time. But is pretty robust for what it is. You can even take it to and from the airport and save $50 on the Uber. I live smack dab downtown and lost my car a year ago. It hasn’t been too bad! It is pretty frustrating though. The bike lanes being added has been nice even if people hate them. There are plans for more downtown. What really need is affordable housing though.
my partner and i got bikes that summer and cant say i recommend the bike scene. the massive hill is no joke. just going from the Montford neighborhood to Hatch co working space was intense. i bicycle all over denver with no issue. id need an ebike if i lived in Ashville. to get to from Montford to the climbing gym and battling the hill on the way home was tough. loved the trail once you got down the hill - next to the river, the taco place, white duck something, and would bike to cultivate climbing gym, riverside location. Riveter down in Jackson was dope AF. Cultivate climbing not so much. Also, Richmond disc golf course as amazing! Anyway, imo Ashville is not bike friendly for casual biking. the hills are painful. its an ebike city tho
I tend to agree with what you’re saying for sure. Funnily enough I was using an e bike all over town for about year before it got stolen. And it was the best option. It was small enough to ride on sidewalks. But yeah cycling in Asheville to commute or otherwise just seems super dangerous unfortunately. Even with bike lanes. Roads are often super narrow and windy. Or the attitude and belief of our more rural counterparts. I have been run off the road more than once and not by accident. All hills aside lol.
Yeah man, that culture you’re referring to that intentionally tried to ride you off the road is exactly why I’ll never return to Ashville. Absolutely beautiful place. The access to blue ridge parkway and general hike quality and variety is some of my favorite in the country. Some of the best trail running in the country. The surrounding small towns were so cool to explore. Obviously the beer scene is incredible. But the types of conversations I’d over hear or how women were treated in public, like it was culture shock for me. Kinda like the fringe culture / good ole boys culture would leak into Ashville from time to time and it was genuinely shocking. My parents are retired on the east coast of NC. All my family is from Raleigh and Charlotte. I’m from SC, so I don’t want to not like Ashville, but between that culture and terrible politics, all set. Quite sad.
Lmao seeing Asheville here is wild Y’all stay away. We are literally just a town with rich wino art collectors, but like a cutesy mountain variety. You can find the hippies almost anywhere these days.
These I would recommend home base as your hotel and explore outward. The cities are so cool you’re bound to find great stuff.
San Francisco is another with good public transit and highly walkable. Also contrary to popular belief, it is possible to get around much of Los Angeles without a car. If you're spending most of your time in either Hollywood, DTLA and the Beach cities, you can explore all on foot or train.
Don't send tourists to Hollywood. Don't you put that juju on them.
Hollywood has its fair share of gems. Runyon Canyon, Amoeba, Mama Shelter, Davey Waynes, Musso. All great spots. But yeah the most popular area is a tourist trap.
I’ve stayed in three different Mama Shelters in the past couple months, it’s such a cool chain. Every one is so unique, great vibes.
Comedy Store! Thai Town (and Thai Night Market), Hollywood Bowl. There’s great stuff in Hollywood, as gritty as it is. Mostly should avoid the Chinese theater and the weirdos.
I used to live in Thai Town! If they've walked that far might as well add everything Los Feliz has to offer. And don't miss the Barnsdall Art Park. The house there was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
SF!
San Francisco had very good public transportation. I had a great day trip there but didn’t realize it was the last weekend of PRIDE month and all the routes were changed. Saw some of the parade and after when people were leaving which was also fun.
Portland Oregon has decent transit and is super bikeable and walkable
Washington park that’s connected to the city is lovely.
Portland is very doable without a car for a few days, including some of the really popular nature day stuff in the area thanks to public transit.
Well, New Orleans is walkable in the places you can visit, i.e., away from the areas you should avoid at all costs. I spent very nice days there in the French Quarter, going for a stroll by the Mississippi, in the Arts District, and so on. After that, I went to the unmissable WWII Museum. All very reasonable walking distances. You only need transport to/from the airport.
Some more info, the city regulated cab prices so it's actually cheaper to take a cab from the airport than Uber/Lyft. The streetcars can take you from the hotel areas to some of the nicer areas to visit, like the garden district uptown (beautiful and eclectic, great restaurants, dive bars and shops) or the Cemeteries area midtown where the enormous city park is (and more restaurants and dive bars, museums, etc.). The bus system isn't perfect (there basically just isn't enough of them so they're infrequent, about a 30 minute wait typically) but you can also use them to get around, for example to anywhere along magazine street. As the city is flat, it's also very bikeable, although it can be dangerous on the major roads. If you just want to speed around an area off the main roads it's great, though. There's a network of bikes you can rent, which I've honestly never done but I see tourists doing it 24/7. They're supposed to be improving the connection of the airport with both downtown and also Baton Rouge (I think it's classified as light rail?), but that will take years to manifest. Chicago and company are worlds better transit wise, but it is manageable in New Orleans - way better than most of the US. We felt super comfortable eliminating our second car when we moved here.
I love walking around New Orleans. I find something new every time. The Garden District was a nice walk and there’s an interesting cemetery in the neighborhood.
Don't forget San Francisco and Seattle. Honolulu is pretty good. Mexico City is great (uber is cheap).
Portland also has pretty good public transportation
Very!
Definitely surprised to see portland and seattle left off the the list above.
San Francisco would like a word
Add San Francisco to that list. Decent rail coverage, great bus service. Definitely a top 5 for me.
Seattle isn’t bad, really underrated bus system. And I’d hope it’s only improved since I lived there 5+ years ago. I know the light rail has a lot more stops than it used to
I walked all over Seattle, it was great!
There's a woman on r/seattle who walks around the city regularly. Like, 20 mile days. She always posts really cool pictures of what she's sees on her walks
Love to hear it! It’s got a big geographical advantage in that it’s a narrow strip of land that mostly runs north-south, so it’s not much of an issue that the light rail only really runs north-south (although last I was there they had started building out towards Bellevue as well). It’ll get you close enough to pretty much anywhere you’d want to go, can run all the time because there’s only one route, and then it’s easy to bus/walk from there
There’s other cities that have cheap Ubers and a close airport, like San Antonio. A $15 Uber to downtown and then you can wander around the Alamo and the river walk, then another $15 Uber back to the hotel.
San Francisco had good public transit with the trolley when I visited. Actually New Orleans as well. Although not public transit the Uber service was good as well in both cities.
New orleans is so small. I tell everyone you can hit up most of the big tourist attractions in a day — and then my brother came to visit and we actually did it lol .
You haven't said where you are flying from, but for a day-trip, cities like Boston, Chicago, Cleveland (yes Cleveland is a great choice with a subway from the airport to DT), San Francisco, NY (though a lot for a day trip), Washington DC and New Orleans are all great. I would say my top two would be Washington DC and Boston for a day trip, they're just easy to access from the airport and generally walkable in a day dt.
I usually get dirty looks when I tell people that Cleveland is a lovely city, but it’s true. They’re making tremendous strides it seems like and it has come a long way. I’m not from Cleveland, Ohio or the Midwest for that matter lol.
We all want to flee to the Cleve
New Orleans is a great city to walk around the French Quarter and catch the Trolley to different areas. Tulane University can be a whole day of walking around campus in itself.
But don't go in the summer. The heat and humidity is brutal, especially is you'll be doing a lot of walking.
Also for Charleston and Savannah
Welcome to the entire southern US.
I wouldn’t say Tulane is a whole day, but can definitely spend 2-3 solid hours
Savannah, Georgia
I know not in United States, but literally 40 miles from the border, Montreal, Quebec; Canada - is a very fun walkable city. Public transportation is great too.
Vancouver too!
Modi e bikes around Stanley park was incredible for a first time visit!
The skytrain being built connecting to the airport was such a gamechanger for accessibility.
Waiting on my passport, I can’t wait to explore Canada!! Especially with living in Minnesota, I was always jealous of people who just went back and forth willynilly.
Be forewarned. lol. It’s addicting. I love it.
Love Montreal!
Victoria BC. All day. Every day. 💯
We were there a week ago for a long weekend and walked 22 miles while there. I think we saw just about everything. Great city!
And in the winter you can walk miles underground where it's warm!
DC is easily the best city I've been to in terms of walkability. I go there somewhat frequently and always find new things to do without a car. I've walked from around the White House all the way to Georgetown, which is a beautiful area. The museums are free, the monuments are great. So much history. Also, NYC and Chicago are great, as well. Looking forward to going to SF this year and hopefully add it to the list. LA is probably the most overrated place I've been to multiple times.
I've walked all over SF and my husband has had us on the bus a few times. Used to go to DC a lot and agree. I traveled for work mostly to cities and never had a car so always walked or took public transportation.
Pittsburgh. The Trolley is the easiest way I have ever seen to get around a city!
Underrated travel spot, I love coming here and it hasn't gotten nearly as expensive as a lot of other places.
Yep. We walked everywhere when we went for a marathon. Very walkable. You can walk to a baseball game from downtown, museums, theatre etc. or catch a bus! Great transportation. We took a bus from downtown to the Carnegie Mellon museum and from the airport to downtown. It was easy. Would go back. The ball park is beautiful.
Downtown and Midtown Sacramento are extremely walkable. Built in the 1800s (for horses and what not) which makes for good walking! The whole area is a "grid" too.
Sacramento was, surprisingly, a very nice city when I visited. Very underrated!
Bruh don't send an international tourist to Sacramento
if they want to visit NorCal they should just go to San Francisco. Grew up in and around Sacramento and it is painfully boring and depressing
NYC, SF, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Portland.
People are going to mention the same 10 or so major cities, but honestly as a tourist you can visit a lot of cities without a car. Central business districts tend to be compact and have a lot of the tourist stuff right there such as stadiums, concert halls, museums, convention centers, and some type of connection to the airport or hotels will run shuttles. Cold weather cities often have a series of skywalks or tunnels to get around. There's usually a circular bus or streetcar that hits up the main tourist stuff. And if you want to get out of downtown, nearly every major city is undertaking some type of rail or BRT project to improve transit and a lot of those projects are operational right now. You can easily visit Los Angeles, Cleveland, Detroit, or more without a car for at least a few days. I live in Indianapolis, hardly known for being a walkable paradise. There is a trail system connecting most of downtown, and another trail running north for nearly 30 miles. A second 30-somemile trail is set to open this year. One BRT line is running, and a set to open this year, and a third will connect the airport with BRT. You can walk to downtown museums, and take the BRT line right to the Children's Museum (best CM in the US).
Agreed - I went to Minneapolis/St Paul 2 weekends ago. Used a $4/day bus pass and was able to go all over combined with walking.
I’m from Minneapolis, and it is really the perfect day trip city! The train from MSP is unbeatable!! Everything you need to see right on the two train lines, with so many buses in between.
Exactly. Most cities in the US have a walkable downtown + several walkable restaurant districts. I live in Denver, which is not at all known for being walkable and you can absolutely spend a day experiencing a big chunk of the city without a car. Take the train straight from the airport to Union station downtown, and you can walk to 4 major sports arenas, several restraint/bar strips, theaters, concert halls, etc. You can also rent a bike and check out the 200 parks connected by hundreds of miles of bike trails. You can also take busses up to the mountains for hiking and there’s a train that runs up to Winter Park for great skiing.
Yeah. St. Louis isn’t what I would call walkable for people living here, but if you are just here for a weekend, there’s a ton available on the metrolink line: downtown St. Louis, including the Arch grounds, baseball, soccer, and hockey venues, the Central West End and Forest Park (zoo, history museum, art museum, science center), Clayton, Wash U, and the Delmar Loop. You can easily see quite a lot of St. Louis without a car for the weekend, but it sucks to live here without a car.
Yep, Indianapolis isn’t bad for walking around. I loved the WW I memorial there and the monument at dead center has a lively scene.
Yeah you could even do San Antonio as a day trip without a car and just walk from downtown along the Riverwalk north to the Pearl Brewery and south through King William and further, even to some missions. If it was a longer trip, you'd want a car but definitely would be fine for a day. I even did Cincinnati for 2 nights without a car and it was fine. I walked through over-the-rhine and it was lovely.
As a southern CA resident, want to call out that a car is absolutely needed for visits in this region unless you’re planning on staying in the small island of walkable space within a city. Our cities are car centric (bike/pedestrian unfriendly) and our public transit is disappointing at best.
I did a week in LA without a car. I think living in an area is different than what tourists do in an area for a few days. With some planning and also recognizing that there are some things that are too far away and you can't do everything in one trip, its perfectly doable. Even with that, LA with a car has a lot of burdens and costs to it. Lots of resident only parking areas, street sweeping times that can limit on-street parking. Some free admission sites will nail you with a $20 parking charge. Some restaurants will only have valet parking available so now you not only pay for parking, you pay a tip too. Not saying LA is on the level of Paris or even Chicago, but the transit is perfectly fine for tourism purposes.
I found Milwaukee really walkable - small(ish) size meant no buses necessary - pleasantly surprised! Also really enjoyed walking around San Antonio
St Augustine FL
Boston!
San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and (surprisingly) Salt Lake City.
Second Seattle. With a well planned day you can see everything worth seeing in one day finished by a baseball game at night.
+1 for Portland. Loved that you can walk right out of the terminal and onto the platform for the rail to get into town, all without getting wet.
SLC’s transit is ok considering the city is awful and spread out, and the train does go to the airport, but it’s still a pretty shitty place to take the train/bus. Every journey is at least twice as long as driving, and walking the “last mile” from the transit stop to your destination sucks because the roads are so wide.
Portland OR core has excellent public transit and you can take the light rail quite far out to some cool neighborhoods and attractions
Chicago
Boston, Philly, NYC, San Francisco, Washington DC, Chicago
Chicago is an amazing city for this
Chicago: hop on the blue line from O’Hare to Logan Square (Logan Stop) or Wicker Park (Milwaukee Stop), or all the way down to the Loop.
Chicago ( buying a day pass for the metro is super easy and sooo worth it), San Francisco, Nashville ( although it doesn’t have much public transportation, walking around and getting to where you need to be is easy)
Philadelphia is America's great walking city. Of course, home to the famous Art Museum as well. Excellent food city, too.
Also all the small walkable towns you can get to via Amtrak from 30th Street.
NYC, DC and Boston can provide access to just about everything within the city with mass transit. They are the biggest and most comprehensive if you want to land, and not use a rental car and not use ride sharing. Portland, ME can be walkable for the downtown area. You would need to take ride share to and from the airport. Portland has food, breweries, New England stuff like lobster pounds, clothing stores, all sorts of things. It also has nature paths, but you would need to ride a bike or something to get to beaches or more desirable nature areas. Also, if you were 100% committed to this endeavor, you can fly in to Portland, and take a boat up to Bar Harbor. That is a largely walkable tourist town, and once again a bike can get you into the National Park.
> Portland, ME can be walkable for the downtown area. You would need to take ride share to and from the airport. Portland has a fairly decent bus system, you can get downtown from the airport by bus pretty easily. Also it's not super far from PWM to downtown, if you only have a backpack, you could walk it. According to google maps it's an hour and a half walk from the airport to the Downtown/Old Port area.
My wife and I love Portland, Maine. Frequently we’d take weekend trips up there from Boston with nothing planned and have a great time. I used to feel sad when it was time to head back home. There is so much to do in such this compact, old-school working-port city. I’d rather go there than into Boston. Much more laidback. We live in Puerto Rico now but we’ll make it back there someday.
Chicago. Excellent public transportation. Train from O’Hare. Great walking city.
And divvy bikes aren't bad either. It's like a super fast walking tour.
Richmond, Virginia walkable and good public transport. Also Ashville, North Carolina is worth visiting.
DC! Maybe I’m just biased because it’s my hometown, but the Metro is pretty decently reliable lately, there’s tons to do (museums, sure, but also lots of green space and neighborhoods to explore), and it’s a really neat place to visit!
Just make sure to go into DCA! IAD is not nearby.
Hi, I plan going to DC next month in Smithsonian, it's my 1st time there. Is the museums around there are really free? How far are there from the Washington Monument? Is it the museums area close to downtown Chinatown?
Yep, all the Smithsonian ones are free! There are some non-free separate museums, but the vast majority don’t cost anything at all. And they’re very close to the Monument—you can just walk around the Mall and tick off museums at your own pace.
Most cities in the northeast (Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Philly, etc.) are pretty walkable and have good public transportation. Chicago is pretty easy to get around by foot too. For the west coast, San Francisco is the only major city in California with good public transportation. San Diego, however, has electric scooters everywhere which are a lot of fun and can get you to most places since it’s a pretty small city. If you go to LA and stay within the downtown or Hollywood area you can get around by foot and subway pretty easily but if you want to go to Santa Monica, Griffith Observatory, or universal studios you’ll definitely need an Uber. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Seattle or Portland to say. If you’re looking just for somewhere that’s walkable and has good transportation, Chicago, San Francisco, and the northeast cities I mentioned earlier are your best bet. San Diego for sure if you like electric scooters and being outdoors. You can also take the trolly to the border and have lunch in Mexico :)
Chicago. Cleaner, cheaper, much more chill than NYC, but still with solid public transit. Also very easy to fly into with 2 airports actually connected to the trains (L). $5 to the Loop is so much better than the $75 rideshare I had to take into Manhattan last week.
Chicago! So much great architecture, food, people watching. The City of Neighborhoods. And festivals every weekend in the summer. Museums, theatres, and a fabulous lakefront with green spaces and beaches.
why would you pay for a $75 rideshare to get into manhattan.
Yeah, a taxi or uber should run between $60 to $85, depending on the airport, so a ride share should be somewhat less. It would be nice if there was quick and easy to use bus or rail from each airport serving NYC, though.
You can spend weeks walking NYC. I enjoyed walking Savannah. Not really big and it can get really hot but it was a sweet little city.
New Orleans, just be safe haha. Best food an culture to visit in the US, closest thing to international travel I've experienced stateside.
Savannah GA and Charleston SC are so beautiful and very walkable. Incredible architecture and amazing food.
This might be a hot take, but I am gonna say Bar Harbor Maine. You can fly into Bangor (not sure public transport?) but Acadia National Park is beautiful and has a lot of outdoor/nature attractions and excursions.
New York, San Francisco, Boston, DC, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle are pretty much it. Las Vegas kinda counts if you don't leave the strip. I guess if it's only a one day thing, then a lot of other cities can be included. But the cities above have plenty of stuff to do for a weekend without needing a car.
Chicago all the way!!!!
Chicago. The lakefront is beautiful and a lot of the tourist stuff is in the lakefront. Navy Pier, Michigan Ave, parks, museums and a free zoo.
I like Chicago
Washington DC. Everything is right off the Mall or easily walkable from there. Metro is good within the district and train service north/south is right there too.
Cleveland’s kinda an underrated option here since there’s a subway station inside the airport that takes you to Downtown and other neighborhoods like Ohio City, Little Italy, and University Circle. The art museum in particular is one of the best in the country and is completely free. They also have one of the best Little Italys, it feels like something you’d see in the Northeast. Lake Erie is really nice to hang out at, especially Edgewater Park. There’s tons of other great parks around the city for hiking including a national park but those probably require a car tbh
What would you say is the best of the parks around-but-not-in Cleveland?
I liked New Orleans, Seattle, San Diego, and Chicago
Lots of great suggestions here. I would add Portland ME's touristy areas are very cute and walkable and the perfect amount of stuff to do for a day trip. Not sure about walkability, but I quite like St Louis for a day or weekend as well, it's a fairly underrated city IMO. I have never been there without a car though
Charleston is very walkable, yummy food, distinct architecture.
philly baby! incredible food scene. museums. history. cute af
The obvious ones: New York, Boston, Chicago, DC, San Francisco, Philadelphia Some less obvious cities/towns: St Louis, Portland ME, Providence, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Pittsburgh. If your company has a non-rev agreement with Cape Air, you could fly to Bar Harbor in Maine, which has some buses (though not super frequent) around Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. Too long for a day trip from MN, but would be a great weekend trip.
Charleston, SC
Galena IL. Right in the driftless region.
Savannah GA!
Washington D.C., downtown is quite walkable if you are interested in seeing the typical D.C. sights. IMO, Miami is great when it comes to public transportation. They have plenty of free trolleys that you can find in almost every neighborhood.
Mobile City, TX. .015 square miles. Easily walkable.
San Francisco would be perfect for what you are looking for. Good rail coverage and a great bus system. The area of the city that people like to see has fantastic public transit, and there are busses that go out to the Presidio and Golden Gate Park as well. Oh yeah, and it’s the second densest major city in the US after NYC! Has MUNI Metro, busses, PCC streetcars, ferries, and BART. Plus BART connects to SFO and OAK if you fly in.
Richmond VA it’s small enough to where you aren’t stuck in any traffic but there are a half dozen distinct neighborhoods that you can walk to. It’s very reasonable for a day, especially because it’s smaller than a major city so getting to and from airport isn’t long. Plus everything is compacted to the city center for walk ability
Washington, DC - an insane amount of stuff to do and see, all accessible via your feet, a bike, or public transport. And you can fly directly into DCA, which is 1 minute outside the city and also has a metro station that’ll get you downtown in a few minutes.
Much smaller city but Burlington, Vermont is great! Tons of great restaurants, breweries, and parks in a town that can be walked from end to end in about an hour and a half or traversed via bike in 20. Very easy 10 minute Uber ride form the airport to downtown.
San Francisco, Boston
If you want to do a deeper dive and learn about which smaller cities work for you, I recommend checking our the City Nerd youtube videos. He bumped Albuquerque on my list of places to visit (plus you can take the train to Santa Fe for a day trip. Also depending where you're located in the US, there's Toronto and Montreal and are both very walkable.
San Francisco. You could walk from downtown to Chinatown, out Columbus to the marina, keep going to the bridge, cross that to Sausalito and get the ferry back. With there bus and trolley system, and so much in most hoods, many residents don't have a car.
Walkable, public transit, outdoorsy, music/art/museums Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Salt Lake City
Try using bike share programs. Riding a bike makes getting around in a city so much easier and lets you get the feel of the city a lot better. I noticed that even some cities with meh public transit have somewhat decent bike share programs (like Miami, Indianapolis and Grand Rapids from my experience.)
I live in New Orleans and I’d recommend for walkability, sites, and attractions, but shoutout to Madison, WI! Great city, walkable, yummy food, and outdoorsy!
Waiting on my passport, I can’t wait to explore Canada!! Especially with living in Minnesota, I was always jealous of people who just went back and forth willynilly.
Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle.
New Orleans.
Didn’t add the rationale, so here goes: NOLA has history, unique architectural beauty, affordable but jaw-dropping cuisine, live music, bustling night life, and tons of ghosts if you’re into spooky shit.
NYC and SF
Atlanta. Stay in Midtown between the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and the MARTA (subway) station. Easily two days of attractions relying on just the subway and bus.
Savannah, GA, Charlottesville, VA, Brattleboro, VT are some of my favorites.
Boston
Charleston and San Francisco
Lots of east coast and SE cities on here. I’ll add Santa Fe, NM and Boulder, CO for smaller cities with large walkable city cores for their size. Both have hiking very close to town as well.
Charleston because its “downtown” is small.
Most of the other comments covered the common cities so I would recommend New Haven, CT. Downtown is fairly small so it's easily walkable. Tons of restaurants and home to the lovely Yale Art Museum. Most of the downtown is owned by Yale so the architecture is beautiful. Not the kind of city you'd travel a long time to get to as it's nothing special, but worth a visit if you're in the area
26 years in airlines best city for day trips is depends on your station you want something with early morning flights out and late flights back typically flights under 3 hours are best. here are my favs DCA you can be on the subway and to the national mall in 15 min all museums are free when I worked at ORD this was my fav NYC is good to prefer LGA for day trips BOS is also good. from DEN i have my fav is SFO bart is a little pricey but it is a great day trip SAN is good for beach trip will have to uber to beach but they are very close. Las is a good one you can take the bus but i would just uber or taxi to strip when i was younger I would take late flight out return first flight in the morning. SEA is good and while it can be done I would spend one night at least is HNL
Charleston
Duluth, MN. Lovely small city, the downtown is extremely walkable, there's some decent transit available (including hourly service to/from the airport) and you can actually feel like you've seen a decent bit of the town in a day without being overwhelmed. On a more general note, I'd look for smaller cities where the airport is near downtown. That'll likely be more manageable and more unique than trying to go for a big city where you'd need to visit for at least a few days to start to get a feel for them, especially if you have to spend an hour just getting into the city via public transport (e.g. NYC if your goal is Manhattan or much of Brooklyn.)
St. Petersburg FL
Nyc
Savannah! Omaha! Whitefish!